Top AI Think Tanks Shaping the Future (2025)

AI isn’t just being built in research labs and startups. It’s also being shaped in think tanks. Curious about the lesser-known labs doing groundbreaking AI work? Check out our guide to Underdog AI Research Labs. Policy, strategy, and ethics hubs that advise governments, corporations, and the public on how AI should be developed and deployed.

Here are the top AI think tanks to know in 2025:

1. Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) – Georgetown University

• Focus: AI & national security, global competition.
• Why it matters: Provides policy briefings for U.S. Congress and defense leaders on AI, semiconductors, and China.

2. Partnership on AI (PAI) – San Francisco

• Focus: Responsible AI practices, multi-stakeholder governance.
• Why it matters: Backed by OpenAI, Google, Apple, Meta, Microsoft — a rare collaborative hub across Big Tech + NGOs.

3. Future of Humanity Institute (FHI) – Oxford University (currently in transition, but legacy is huge)

• Focus: Existential risk, long-term AI futures.
• Why it matters: Nick Bostrom’s shop. They helped put AI safety on the global agenda.

4. Center for AI Safety (CAIS) – San Francisco

• Focus: Technical alignment research + policy advocacy.
• Why it matters: Released the 2023 “AI extinction risk” statement signed by leading researchers.

5. AI Now Institute – New York University

• Focus: AI’s social, ethical, and labor impacts.
• Why it matters: Among the first to research algorithmic bias and surveillance harms.

6. Ada Lovelace Institute - London

• Focus: Data & AI policy, human rights.
• Why it matters: A European leader on AI governance — influential on UK/EU AI regulations.

7. Brookings Institution – Center for Technology Innovation - Washington, DC

• Focus: AI policy, innovation, and governance in democratic contexts.
• Why it matters: Brookings briefings are staples for lawmakers shaping AI laws in the U.S.

8. The Alan Turing Institute – London

• Focus: AI research + public policy.
• Why it matters: UK’s national AI institute, bridging academic research with applied policy frameworks.

9. Center for a New American Security (CNAS) – Washington, DC

• Focus: Defense, strategy, and emerging tech.
• Why it matters: Provides some of the most influential reports on AI’s role in military competition.

10. Montreal AI Ethics Institute (MAIEI) – Canada

• Focus: Community-driven research on AI ethics.
• Why it matters: Open, public-facing initiatives that make AI ethics accessible beyond academia.

Key Takeaways

• Policy is power: These orgs are shaping how governments regulate AI and how companies deploy it.
• Global spread: U.S. and UK dominate, but Canada and EU players are rising.
• Two camps:
  • Safety / existential risk (CAIS, FHI, CSET)
  • Ethics / social impact (AI Now, Ada Lovelace, MAIEI)

Next time you hear about an AI regulation or policy framework, chances are one of these think tanks wrote the white paper behind it.