AI is shaping the policy landscape, but is less unified than expected

AI is shaping the policy landscape, but is less unified than expected

Author:

The Carta Policy Team

|

Read time:

9 minutes

Published date:

April 14, 2026

AI policy accelerates in Washington, meanwhile, Congress reauthorizes SBIR/STTR programs. Plus, new tentative stablecoin deals and the INVEST Act aim to modernize capital formation and digital asset regulation for the innovation ecosystem.

Topline

AI stakes are rising as Congress works to develop legislative framework

Washington returned from recess this week to a full inbox on AI and a shrinking calendar to do anything about it. Congressional leaders want to translate the White House’s AI framework into passable legislation before the August recess, after which the legislative window all but closes ahead of the midterms. This may prove an impossible task.

Congress is behind the curve and legislating against a moving target. AI capabilities are advancing faster than the policy process can accommodate. The fault lines are not clearly defined by issue or by party, and the industry itself is divided on what responsible regulation looks like. Meanwhile, the stakes keep getting higher.

DC infrastructure play. The major AI labs aren’t just building models; they’re building the policy infrastructure around them. Last week, OpenAI released a sweeping policy agenda covering economic disruption, workforce transition, and AI governance. Anthropic has previously advanced similar frameworks. Both companies are expanding their DC footprints and campaign war chests, arriving in Washington not just as technology companies but as policy architects with detailed blueprints for how Congress should respond to the AI moment.

Little tech enters the chat. The American Innovators Network—a coalition backed by a16z, Y Combinator, and 30+ startups—is ramping up its congressional presence to push back on proposals championed by well-capitalized incumbents. Their core concern is structural: safety mandates, compute requirements, and compliance regimes designed around frontier-scale operations tend to function as barriers to entry for smaller developers, regardless of intent, foreclosing competition and chilling innovation. AIN’s priority on the Hill is elevating state-level transparency frameworks—particularly California and New York—as a template for federal preemption.

The stakes are rising. Concerns about AI’s economic displacement effects and energy costs have been present for months, but the cybersecurity threat has now become concrete. Anthropic shook the ecosystem with its preview of Mythos, a highly advanced model reportedly so capable at identifying software vulnerabilities that it is not being released publicly.  Instead, Anthropic is making it available to a select coalition of companies to shore up defenses. Notably, the federal government has not been part of that process to date  as a result of the DOW supply chain designation. Against that backdrop, Treasury Secretary Bessent and Fed Chair Powell convened banking industry leaders to convey the seriousness of current exposure and threats to financial stability.

Net/net: Policymakers are behind the curve on an issue they don’t fully understand,  but one that has become a matter of financial stability, national security, and economic competitiveness. And while Washington gets up to speed, the technology continues to move, and the world continues to change.

What to watch: AI will dominate the congressional agenda through summer, but a comprehensive framework before the midterms remains unlikely. Political fault lines on AI do not run cleanly along party lines, which makes coalition-building unpredictable. If Democrats calculate they have a path to flipping a chamber next cycle—a reasonable read given historical midterm patterns and current sentiment—they may have limited incentive to hand the current majority a bipartisan AI win. In the meantime, expect hearings, targeted bills, and continued pressure from both frontier firms and smaller developers as Congress works to define its role—and the states will continue to do the same.

SBIR/STTR programs reauthorized

President Trump signed the Small Business Innovation and Economic Security Act into law on April 13, reauthorizing the lapsed SBIR/STTR programs through FY31 after a five-month standoff. The bipartisan agreement includes a new “Strategic Breakthrough” initiative for high-impact technologies, strengthened foreign-influence protections, and annual proposal limits replacing lifetime caps, preserving growth pathways for startups while addressing concerns about program concentration.

Why it matters: SBIR/STTR provides critical, non-dilutive capital sources for early-stage innovation and defense tech. The lapse disrupted research pipelines and capital planning for small firms and universities. Carta advocated alongside ecosystem partners and testified before Congress on the program's impact on broadening access to capital and competitiveness.

Crypto corner

Digital asset regulation is accelerating on all fronts. Market structure legislation faces a narrowing legislative window in Congress, while regulators move ahead,  implementing the GENIUS Act, providing regulatory clarity, and building the infrastructure for mainstream integration.

But even with a compromise on stablecoin yield, other provisions regarding DeFi developer liability and a push for ethics language to bar government officials from personally profiting on crypto remain unresolved. The Senate Banking Committee is planning to consider the legislation before the end of the month, with some Senators warning that failure to advance to the Senate floor by May could jeopardize the bill’s chances of being signed into law.

Separately, Treasury released a proposed rule establishing how it will assess whether state-level stablecoin regimes meet the GENIUS Act’s “substantially similar” standard, the threshold that determines whether issuers with $10 billion or less in outstanding issuance can opt into state rather than federal oversight. How Treasury defines “substantially similar” will determine whether state regimes function as genuine alternatives to federal oversight or become a de facto federal floor, shaping the competitive landscape for smaller stablecoin issuers and state regulators jockeying for position.

The INVEST Act: Building for the next generation of American innovation

Read our latest on the INVEST Act—the most ambitious capital formation legislation in over a decade. This legislative package passed the House with a strong bipartisan 302-123 vote in December 2025 and aims to modernize the policy infrastructure underpinning our innovation ecosystem by:

Bottom line: The bill removes regulatory friction that concentrates capital, and Carta will continue to advocate and engage the innovation ecosystem to ensure these priorities make it across the finish line.

FinCEN proposes rule to overhaul AML/CFT programs

FinCEN proposed significant reforms to its anti-money laundering / countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) program, replacing it with a  framework built around program effectiveness rather than technical compliance. Under the proposal, financial institutions must conduct periodic risk assessments tied to FinCEN’s national AML/CFT priorities and demonstrate that their controls actually detect and mitigate risk. The rule draws a formal distinction between program design failures and operational failures, with enforcement reserved for significant or systemic breakdowns.

Why it matters: The proposal signals a shift from process to outcomes: firms get more flexibility to tailor programs to their business models, but face higher expectations around risk methodology, data quality, and monitoring infrastructure. Notably, the proposal does not include the IA AML Rule, which applies BSA obligations directly to investment advisers and private fund managers. As of now, this rule remains effective, with implementation delayed until 2028. FinCEN has previously signaled amendments to the IA rule, which will most likely follow the risk-based and reasonably designed standard outlined in the broader AML/CFT reform proposal.

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