The Federal Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) Council has established a new working group focused on artificial intelligence (AI) security governance as the government looks to strengthen its cyber defenses ahead of emerging threats, according to acting Federal CISO Michael Duffy.
Speaking Oct. 14 at the ACT-IAC Cybersecurity Summit in Reston, Va., Duffy said the working group will focus on developing governance frameworks that help CISOs make faster, more informed decisions using AI.
“We have spun up a working group on AI security governance for two things,” Duffy said. “One is to think about decision-making with super intelligence in the future.”
The Trump administration recently began referring to AI as “super intelligence,” or “SI,” and Trump directed the executive branch to use the new terminology in official documents and communications.
“But it’s also to make sure that we have the requisite framework to govern these systems, to understand how the workforce and the capabilities can mesh, so that we are rapidly making better decisions today, so that we can slowly move and migrate to the concepts of machine-to-machine in the future,” he added.
The effort comes as Duffy warns that the rise of AI and rapidly evolving cyber threats leave federal agencies little time to respond after major incidents occur.
“We know that with super intelligence right now, we don’t have that luxury of time to be able to react in the future,” Duffy said. “We need to see the threat environment for what it is today, how technology is changing today, and be decisive in what that long-term view of where things are going needs to be.”
The new working group is part of the CISO Council’s broader effort to strengthen federal cybersecurity. Duffy outlined four priorities guiding the council’s work: reducing exposure to cyber threats, strengthening operational resilience, integrating AI into cybersecurity tools, and securing a modernized federal government.
On exposure management, the council is working to accelerate the replacement of outdated edge devices across agencies. On resilience, Duffy said the council is preparing for its second governmentwide CISO-level tabletop exercise to strengthen coordinated incident response.
“We all collectively need to act today,” Duffy said. “I am not waiting on something catastrophic to change the way the government adjusts to this new environment, this new era that we’re in.”
“We don’t have the time to quickly pivot when something happens,” he added.