National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026, Section 6602 ("Artificial intelligence development and usage by intelligence community")

• Authority: United States Congress
• Parent authority: Federal government
• Jurisdiction: United States
• Collections: NDAA provisions;U.S. federal laws;FY2026 NDAA
• Most recent activity: Enacted
• Most recent activity date: 2025-12-18

Risk subdomain coverage

Minimal coverage — Brief mention but no specific mitigations, recommendations or governance measures relating to the risk subdomain are described.

• AI system security vulnerabilities
• Competitive dynamics
• Governance failure
• Lack of capability or robustness
• Lack of transparency or interpretability

All other risk subdomains had no coverage in this document.

Risk Coverage Summary

The document has minimal coverage of risk domains, with limited focus on AI system security (2.2), governance structures (6.5), and system safety/robustness (7.3, 7.4). The document primarily establishes governance structures and procurement practices rather than directly addressing specific AI risks and harms.

Sector coverage

Good coverage — Comprehensive governance measures or mitigations with clear procedures relating to the sector are explicitly described.

• National Security

All other sectors had no coverage in this document.

Sectors Summary

This document exclusively governs AI development and usage within the National Security sector, specifically the Intelligence Community. It establishes governance structures, sharing requirements, and performance tracking for AI systems used by intelligence community elements.

Legislative Status

Hard Law

Legislative Status Summary

This is a section of the National Defense Authorization Act passed by the United States Congress, which is binding federal legislation with mandatory requirements for intelligence community elements.

Actors

Proposer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: United States Congress
• Summary: The document is Section 6602 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026, which is proposed and enacted by the United States Congress as indicated in the document header.

Target

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor, AI_Developer, AI_Deployer
• Entities: Intelligence Community elements; Chief Artificial Intelligence Officers; Chief Information Officer of the Intelligence Community; heads of elements of the intelligence community
• Summary: The document applies to elements of the Intelligence Community, their Chief AI Officers, and heads of these elements, requiring them to designate officers, share AI systems, adopt policies, and track performance.

Enforcer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: Chief Information Officer of the Intelligence Community; Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer of the Intelligence Community; heads of elements of the intelligence community
• Summary: The Chief Information Officer and Chief AI Officer of the Intelligence Community are designated to coordinate implementation, while heads of IC elements are responsible for ensuring compliance with tracking and evaluation requirements.

Monitor

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: heads of elements of the intelligence community; Chief Information Officer of the Intelligence Community
• Summary: Heads of IC elements are explicitly required to track and evaluate AI performance across multiple dimensions, while the Chief Information Officer coordinates identification of reusable systems.

AI Lifecycle Stages

Lifecycle stages covered by the documents, as defined in the OECD Framework for the Classification of AI Systems

• Plan and Design
• Collect and Process Data
• Build and Use Model
• Verify and Validate
• Deploy
• Operate and Monitor

AI Lifecycle Summary

The document covers multiple AI lifecycle stages with primary focus on deployment and operational monitoring. It addresses planning through designation of Chief AI Officers, model building through sharing of code and model weights, deployment through procurement practices, and operation through mandatory performance tracking.

Technical Scope

Terms relating to technical scope that are mentioned or implicitly referenced in the document

• AI Models
• AI Systems
• Open Weight / Open Source

Technical Scope Summary

The document explicitly mentions AI systems and addresses technical components including models, model weights, and custom-developed code. It does not specifically mention frontier AI, general purpose AI, foundation models, or compute thresholds, focusing instead on commonly used AI systems within the intelligence community context.