For Trump, Delivering for Voters Means Delivering on AI
As President-elect Trump begins shaping his AI policy, his focus appears to be on unwinding President Biden’s approach to AI governance and enlisting figures like Elon Musk, who aims to address distant threats from superintelligent systems. However, if this election has highlighted anything, it’s that voters are far less interested in abstract debates and lofty promises than in tangible results they can feel—like lower grocery bills, affordable healthcare, safer streets, and a good education for their children. If Trump wants AI to be a meaningful part of his legacy, he’ll need to focus on delivering the promise of his 2019 initiative, which pledged “AI for the American people.” Achieving this will require a clear agenda that accelerates adoption, prioritizes innovation, and ensures the diffusion of AI’s benefits across the entire country.
First, and perhaps most importantly, is adoption. While President Biden’s 2023 executive order called for federal agencies to integrate AI, it focused primarily on mitigating risks—requiring agencies to establish oversight boards, create governance guidelines, and address potential AI pitfalls. But the government must go beyond minimizing risks; it must also maximize AI’s benefits. Many government officials recognize AI’s transformative potential in fields like education, energy, and disaster response, as highlighted at the recent AI Aspirations conference. What’s missing is not vision but action. Trump’s task is to move from ideas to impact by turning aspirations into concrete, measurable improvements for Americans. This requires establishing sector-specific roadmaps that prioritize deployment and equipping agencies with the resources to scale AI-driven services.
Encouraging private sector adoption is just as critical to AI’s success. For many, AI breakthroughs—such as DeepMind’s AlphaFold, which won a Nobel Prize this year for its work on protein folding—remain fascinating but distant, more like academic exercises than practical solutions. To bridge this gap, federal agencies should collaborate with industry to develop tailored strategies that promote AI’s real-world impact. This means providing policy guidance, aligning procurement processes, reducing regulatory barriers, and creating incentives for firms to invest in AI. By transforming AI from a lab experiment into a tool for broader economic productivity, Trump’s administration can ensure AI doesn’t just win awards but also delivers tangible value for Americans. Keeping these strategies dynamic and responsive will help AI evolve from theoretical promise to everyday benefit, where it truly matters.
Second is innovation. Trump should prioritize developing a national strategy to ensure the United States remains at the forefront of AI development, unlocking new opportunities. While U.S. leadership in AI has been a priority across multiple administrations, the president-elect is stepping back into a race that has changed significantly since his last term, with China now posing a more serious challenge to America’s role as the leader in AI development. Even if Trump removes regulatory barriers, a hands-off approach alone won’t secure the U.S. edge in AI or bring its full benefits to everyday Americans. To keep pace, the United States needs a proactive, coordinated strategy that empowers its companies to build world-class AI systems—systems that not only enhance the country’s global standing but also drive down costs, improve services, and create jobs at home.
One critical component of this strategy is strengthening the inputs powering AI, including high-quality, application-specific data pools in fields like agriculture, healthcare, and transportation. In this regard, China’s National Data Administration serves as an important benchmark. This regulatory body, tasked with improving China’s use of data as a strategic economic asset, drives initiatives like smart city development and digitized public services to fuel AI innovation. While the United States should unequivocally condemn China’s authoritarian data practices, adopting a more coordinated data strategy is essential to keeping pace and driving AI innovation that directly benefits Americans.
Last but not least is diffusion. Trump’s AI agenda should focus on ensuring that AI’s benefits extend beyond the coastal tech hubs to the heart of the country. While Democrats debate why they lost the working-class vote—some blaming a failure in messaging, others suggesting they’ve lost touch with their roots—this election has shown that many working-class Americans now align with the Republican party. For Trump, the focus should be on delivering AI-driven growth and opportunity in communities that feel neglected. This means bolstering AI innovation hubs in regions often overlooked by past tech investments—rural areas, manufacturing towns, and middle America should all experience tangible benefits from AI. By fostering local job creation, enhancing productivity in industries like agriculture and manufacturing, and improving essential services like healthcare and education, Trump can ensure AI becomes a practical force that directly benefits everyday Americans.
Crucially, this approach would be undermined if the new administration were to dismantle the CHIPS and Science Act. This legislation has already begun creating jobs and driving regional economic growth by incentivizing domestic semiconductor manufacturing and training a new workforce to support it. Walking away from these investments would weaken the very foundation needed to expand AI’s reach across the country, making the promise of AI-driven growth harder to realize. To truly fulfill his mandate from working-class voters, Trump should build on these efforts, not abandon them, turning AI into a tool that uplifts all of America.
Americans made it clear last week: the president will be measured by results, not rhetoric. Trump has one term—one last shot—to make a difference. The measure of his success, credibility, and legacy will depend on his ability to create tangible improvements in Americans’ lives. When it comes to AI policy, he should focus on making AI work for the American people to fulfill the economic promises that brought him back to the Oval Office.
Image Credits: Jim Watson/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
