Anthropic is planning a major Washington D.C. expansion, doubling its employee count and opening an official office by 2026 to prepare lawmakers for AI’s accelerating impact on American industries. The company’s head of policy Jack Clark warns that current AI developments are “small potatoes compared to where it’ll be in a year,” positioning this as a critical moment for policymaker education ahead of the 2026 midterms and 2028 presidential election.
Why it matters: Anthropic believes AI is moving too fast for policymakers to keep up, with Clark describing the challenge of communicating exponential technological change as “almost without precedent.”
- Clark expects AI’s impact on the labor market to become a major political issue in upcoming elections.
- “The lesson over and over again has been AI arrives, it becomes such a big deal, but it changes all of the industries it touches,” Clark said.
Driving the news: The company is launching a week of D.C. events starting Monday, with Clark and CEO Dario Amodei meeting House and Senate leadership and committee heads.
- Anthropic will double its D.C. workforce after outgrowing their coworking space, focusing on product, policy, and trust and safety roles.
- The expansion reflects the company’s belief in staying close to policymakers to discuss AI’s societal role.
What they’re saying: Clark emphasizes the dramatic scale of change ahead for lawmakers and their constituents.
- “What we’re trying to tell people next week is, yes, the technology has generated $5 billion in annual recurring revenue, and is doing all of these crazy deployments, and it’s starting to affect national security and government and businesses,” Clark said.
- “That is small potatoes compared to where it’ll be in a year.”
What we’re watching: Clark said Anthropic wants to see Congress pass federal transparency requirements for AI companies mandating the public disclosure of safety and risk assessment practices.
- The company recently endorsed California’s SB 53, which includes similar transparency mandates.
- “Of course, we prefer it to be federal, but under a short timeline world, you’ve got to try some shots that are available to you,” Clark said.
Zoom in: The company plans to tell policymakers that “AI products are going to be deployed at a far larger scale than you see today, and they are going to be affecting your constituents lives in many more ways than today.”
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