AI Now Institute

What it does

Independent policy research institute. Current agenda centres on the political economy of AI: market concentration and monopoly (co-executive director Amba Kak has testified before the congressional Monopoly Busters Caucus), data-centre expansion and its infrastructure harms, labour and the gig-ification of professions such as nursing, industry opacity, and AI security vulnerabilities. Publishes the Landscape reports.

What they ask for — in their own terms

Challenge the current trajectory of AI by confronting industry concentration and power — antitrust scrutiny, limits on data centre expansion, and worker protection — rather than accepting scale as inevitable.

What they do

Independent research and policy analysis; maps the AI market and the industry's sources of power; publishes data centre policy toolkits and labour research (including AI in nursing); testifies to Congress (Monopoly Busters Caucus, Senate Banking Committee); investigates AI security incidents.

Honest assessment

Publishes an email but explicitly warns it may not respond — take that at face value. Small team, high inbound. Route here only if your concern is corporate power, labour, or infrastructure; a misalignment concern will be actively unwelcome.

What a newcomer can do

Use its data centre policy toolkit if there is a proposed facility near you; cite its market-power research in submissions; apply for a role.

Worth knowing

A research institute, not a campaign — there is no petition, no membership and no volunteering. Its critique targets AI companies' power and is often explicitly at odds with the existential-risk framing used by groups like MIRI and ControlAI.

Concerns it covers

Concentration of corporate power and structural/political-economy harm — the thesis is that the danger is who controls AI and to what commercial end, not that AI will escape control. Sharply and deliberately opposed to the existential-risk framing.

Government channel

Real — congressional testimony, FTC and antitrust engagement, and strong influence on the competition-policy framing of AI.

Tips

no public tip line found

Where they work

United States, with international influence.

Size

Small research institute, co-led by Amba Kak and Sarah Myers West; high influence per head.

Spending

Grant-funded.