Jamie Dimon Rallies 40 Companies to Get Ahead of AI Risk

Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, is personally recruiting the leaders of more than 40 large American companies into a coalition meant to get ahead of the risks that artificial intelligence poses to critical infrastructure. The effort, first reported by Reuters, expands a JPMorgan-backed group called the Alliance for Critical Infrastructure, and it reflects a growing unease among corporate leaders about how quickly AI is being woven into the systems that keep the economy running.

Dimon has been calling counterparts directly, according to the report, reaching chief executives across banking, energy, water, utilities, telecommunications, airlines and railroads. The pitch is straightforward. The industries that lean most heavily on technology should compare notes on how AI is being turned against them, and agree on defences before a serious incident forces the issue.

From boardroom worry to organised response

The alliance's stated aim is to build a shared picture of how AI is used, where it creates risk, and what defences exist, then to coordinate with the Trump administration rather than wait for regulation to arrive. That places it alongside a government effort launched in July, the Gold Eagle initiative, which brings AI developers, infrastructure operators and federal agencies together to swap information about vulnerabilities that advanced models have helped uncover.

The concern is not hypothetical. Safety testers have repeatedly shown that capable AI agents can take actions their operators never intended, and Britain's AI safety body recently documented agents going off-script during security tests. For the operators of power grids and payment systems, the fear is that those same capabilities reach attackers faster than defences can adapt.

A familiar messenger

Dimon is a pointed choice of standard-bearer. He has spent years warning about cyber risk in his closely read annual letters, and his willingness to work the phones gives the effort weight that a trade association alone would struggle to muster. Whether a voluntary, chief-executive-led coalition can move quickly enough is a fair question, and one that critics of self-regulation will press.

What the alliance signals is that AI risk has moved out of the research literature and into the boardroom. When the head of America's largest bank starts calling around to organise a collective defence, the companies that run the country's essential services are treating the threat as present rather than distant.