Microsoft president Brad Smith tells the BBC that AI is less regulated than milk and calls for binding global safety rules led by the UK
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Key facts
- Source: BBC’s Big Boss Interview podcast; BBC News article published Oct 11, 2026
- Smith: ‘Right now, your washing machine is subject to more safety rules than AI. Every carton of milk that you see in the grocery store is subject to safety rules and inspection.’
- Smith: ‘If a company builds AI agents and they break loose, there should be a legal obligation to tell the victim’
- He called for ‘emergency brakes’ to pause or slow AI, legally required ‘incident reports’, and vetting of new AI technology by independent government evaluators
- On the UK AI Security Institute: ‘name the country that is the leader in having this technical capability, they would say, it’s very simple. It’s the United Kingdom. They are the best.’
- On Washington’s likely reaction: ‘people don’t look at the UK and they don’t look at London the way they look at Brussels – that’s a strength’
- Smith: ‘When you look at AI agents that have escaped human control, when you look at models that are so powerful that they’re putting the world’s cybersecurity at risk. I would say: The moment has arrived.’
- On the White House’s ‘morally binding’ statement signed by AI executives in late September: Microsoft is ‘happy to sign it’; ‘It’s a good step, it’s a necessary step... But I don’t think it’s sufficient any longer.’
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- On self-regulation: ‘the good companies will do what you want’; ‘It’s the companies that are not as responsible that you need to worry about.’
What happened
Smith spoke to the BBC’s Big Boss Interview podcast. The BBC framed his position as at odds with President Trump, who has said the sector should regulate itself so that US firms do not lose to Chinese rivals. Smith listed four elements of global rules: emergency brakes, incident reports, a duty to notify victims of rogue agents, and a decision on when outside evaluators must sign off on a product before release. “We know how to do this for other products,” he said. “We should build on that knowledge and think about how to apply it to AI.”
He argued that the UK is best placed to drive such rules because of its AI Security Institute, and that the US would accept UK-made standards more readily than EU ones. He added: “Let’s speak calmly, maybe even softly, but firmly, and start to bring people together. I hope that’s the role we can play as a company. I hope that’s the role the UK can play as a country.”
Why it matters
It is the second statement in two days from Microsoft’s top leadership asking for hard limits on advanced AI, after Satya Nadella’s Oct 10 post on treating models as insider risks. Smith goes further than Nadella by asking for legal obligations, and he says so while the US administration still favours voluntary commitments.
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