a16z AI Policy Brief

Marc Andreessen joins Navin Girishankar, president of the economic security and technology department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), for a wide-ranging conversation on artificial intelligence, productivity growth, national competitiveness, and America’s technological future. In their conversation, Marc argues that while AI has already begun reshaping the economy, the...

Policymakers often say they want to support startups. Republicans say it. And Democrats say it. But despite repeatedly saying they support startups, policymakers often propose rules that make it harder for those startups to build and compete. In this episode, Collin McCune, head of government affairs, joins Matt Perault, head of AI policy at a16z, to discuss the political economy of Little Tech: t...

Policymakers have spent years talking about rebuilding America’s industrial base, reshoring critical supply chains, strengthening defense production, and reducing U.S. dependence on China. But recognizing the need to build is not the same as having the ability to do it. Erin Price-Wright , general partner on Andreessen Horowitz’s American Dynamism practice, joins the AI Policy Brief to make the ca...

For AI startups, the policy landscape is expanding faster than most small teams can reasonably track. This creates a practical challenge for Little Tech: even when a startup wants to engage constructively, it may not have the resources to follow every debate in every jurisdiction. Ben Supple, head of global policy at ElevenLabs, joins Matt Perault to talk about his experience running a public poli...

How should we hold people responsible when AI causes harm? That's the job of a liability regime. In this conversation, Jai Ramaswamy, chief legal and policy officer, joins Matt Perault, head of AI policy at a16z, to unpack the role of liability in AI policy: how to protect people from real harms without slowing innovation, limiting competition, or punishing the wrong actors. They discuss why trust...

Andrew Chen spends his time with the founders policymakers almost never hear from: two-and three-person teams, often before incorporation when a company is still a project. As general partner on a16z speedrun , he works at the earliest edge of Little Tech, backing founders at day one and helping them turn ambition into an actual business. In this conversation, Andrew joins Matt Perault to talk abo...

In this conversation, Matt Perault, head of AI policy, and Collin McCune, head of government affairs, take stock of the current AI policy moment. As AI policy moves beyond rhetoric and into a more consequential phase, Matt and Collin separate signal from noise. They unpack where momentum is building in Washington, how state activity continues to drive the policy environment, and what it all means...

Black Forest Labs has established itself as a pioneer in visual intelligence, with its open-weight FLUX models reaching over 50 million downloads on Hugging Face and rivaling models from Google, OpenAI, and DeepSeek in developer adoption. The company has distinguished itself not only through technical capability, but through a strong commitment to open research. In this conversation, Black Forest...

How is AI changing work? In this episode, Matt Perault sat down with Nick Catino, global head of policy at Deel , to better understand what today’s data can already tell us. Through its HR and payroll platform, Deel works with 35,000 customers and 1.5 million workers across more than 150 countries, giving the company a broad view across employers, geographies, and job categories as AI begins to ch...

The cybersecurity landscape is moving to an AI-vs-AI world where both attackers and defenders can operate at machine speed. In this conversation, Anne Neuberger and Sam Jones join Jai Ramaswamy to go deeper on what this shift looks like in practice. Neuberger draws on nearly two decades in government—including serving as deputy national security advisor for cyber and emerging technology—to explain...

In AI policy, it’s become a reflex to say we are in a global race with China. That shorthand can obscure the true nature of the competition. China and the U.S. aren’t just competing on model performance or chips, we’re competing on the next computing systems the world adopts, and along with it, who holds economic and political power for the next generation.  In this conversation, Jai Ramaswamy, ou...

One of the core pillars of a16z's roadmap for federal AI legislation makes clear AI should not excuse wrongdoing. When people or companies use AI to break the law, existing criminal, civil rights, consumer protection, and antitrust frameworks should still apply. Enforcement agencies should have the resources they need to enforce the law. If existing bodies of law fall short in accounting for certa...

Debates in Washington often frame AI governance as a series of false choices: they pit innovation against safety, progress against protection, federal leadership against the rights of states. But at a16z, we believe these are not binaries. In order for America to realize the full promise of artificial intelligence, we must both build great products and protect people from AI-related harms. Congres...

If you squint at today’s AI policy debates, you may see the Telecommunications Act of 1996 in the distance. In this conversation, Matt Perault, head of AI policy, a16z, sits down with Adam Thierer , resident senior fellow, technology and innovation, R Street Institute, and Blair Levin , policy analyst, New Street Research and non-resident senior associate, Center for Strategic and International St...

Lawmakers are largely supportive of helping AI startups and challengers grow and thrive. They understand the need for the United States to compete and win in AI and generally support small businesses and entrepreneurship. Yet, numerous state AI proposals—while intended to put safeguards in place for the biggest players—still risk sweeping in the startups at the forefront of AI innovation. The tool...

As lawmakers consider requiring companies to make disclosures about their AI models—such as risk reports, impact assessments, or content warnings—questions arise about whether those mandates could run afoul of the First Amendment. In part three of our AI Policy Legal Primer, leading appellate lawyers Allon Kedem , Paul Mezzina , and William Jay join Matt Perault , head of AI policy at a16z, to exp...

The dormant Commerce Clause has been anything but dormant in the last couple of weeks. With Congress and the administration actively debating the proper roles of the federal and state governments in regulating AI, the dormant Commerce Clause has emerged as an important topic of date. In part two of our AI Policy Legal Primer, leading appellate lawyers Allon Kedem , Paul Mezzina , and William Jay a...

There may be no more important debate in AI policy right now than how power to regulate AI should be divided between the federal and state governments. We first wrote about the respective roles of Congress and state governments in early 2025, as we saw states throughout the country introducing bills that would regulate how AI models are built. Now, with speculation about potential Congressional ac...

With states introducing more than 1,000 AI-related bills this year alone, a fundamental question has taken center stage: what are the roles of the federal government and states in regulating AI? In this episode of the a16z AI Policy Brief, Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law joins Jai Ramaswamy, chief legal and policy officer and Matt Perault, head...