Microsoft President Brad Smith stated the U.S. is implementing AI "regulation without transparent or complete rules," creating an environment where businesses cannot effectively plan. [2, 4] In an interview with Fortune, Smith argued that while the government is right to act on risks, it lacks the proper tools and is resorting to blunt instruments like export control laws. [4]
His comments follow recent, abrupt actions by the Trump administration's Commerce Department. Smith cited instances where Anthropic was forced to temporarily pull its Fable 5 model worldwide and OpenAI was pressed to delay public access to GPT-5.6. [2, 4] Although these specific restrictions have since been eased, Smith warned the approach creates significant uncertainty for the industry. [2, 4]