Trump, AI CEOs Discuss Global AI Standards at G7 Summit

President Trump, accompanied by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, participated in a "working lunch" on artificial intelligence and the digital age. The meeting, held during the G7 summit in France, brought together top U.S. officials and CEOs of leading AI companies to discuss a U.S.-led initiative to coordinate global AI standards.

Among the AI industry leaders present were Sam Altman of OpenAI, Demis Hassabis of Google, Dario Amodei of Anthropic, Alexandr Wang of Meta, Arthur Mensch of Mistral AI, Aidan Gomez of Cohere, and Marc Benioff of Salesforce.

Following the meeting, OpenAI's head of global affairs, Chris Lehane, stated that governments and AI companies explored creating a global forum for AI standards. Lehane indicated a consensus among countries and AI labs on the need for a space where democratic nations can collaborate to establish AI safety standards, with the U.S. expected to lead this process. He added that the group also addressed kids' online safety and maintaining global access to AI technology.

At a subsequent press conference, President Trump described the AI meeting as "excellent." He remarked on AI's potential, noting, "It's both great and could be bad. We have to be careful with it, but we're leading China. We're leading the world on that."

The discussions come amidst a shift in the U.S. approach to AI regulation. Historically advocating for a hands-off environment to foster development, the Trump administration has recently implemented measures such as a new AI executive order involving voluntary safety testing for major AI labs and export controls on specific advanced AI models.

According to Axios, U.S. AI policy decisions are increasingly influential in determining global access to advanced AI models.