AI giants tap first leader and $10M fund for Frontier Model Forum

When the fiercest rivals in frontier AI start pooling cash and hiring executive leadership together, you know the regulatory pressure is getting real.

Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI just tapped tech policy veteran Chris Meserole as the first Executive Director of the Frontier Model Forum. Alongside the appointment, the group launched a new AI Safety Fund with over $10 million in initial commitments to back external safety research.

Meserole joins from the Brookings Institution, where he directed the Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology Initiative. In his new seat, he is tasked with turning the forum from a loose coalition into an operational body focused on safety standards, best practices, and knowledge sharing with policymakers.

Pooling cash for independent red teaming

The newly formed AI Safety Fund is backed by the four tech giants alongside philanthropic partners, including the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Eric Schmidt, and Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn.

The capital is earmarked for independent researchers at academic labs and startups developing new model evaluations and red teaming techniques. The Meridian Institute will administer the fund and expects to issue a call for grant proposals over the coming months.

Alongside the funding news, the forum published its first technical update on red teaming. The group is working toward a shared vocabulary and a standardized responsible disclosure process, allowing frontier labs to report dangerous model capabilities much like software security bugs.

Why it matters

For independent researchers, this creates much-needed capital to build evaluation tools outside the walled gardens of Big Tech. If society wants reliable checks on frontier AI, independent academics cannot rely solely on whatever bench testing the model creators choose to publish.

For the broader industry, this alliance looks like self-preservation through preemptive standard-setting. Having signed voluntary commitments at the White House earlier this year, these four companies are aggressively defining what responsible deployment and red teaming mean before governments step in with rigid mandates.

That said, we think $10 million is pocket change compared to the billions pouring into frontier training runs. There is a real risk that this initiative serves primarily as cheap insurance and narrative control, while locking in safety frameworks that only the founding giants have the resources to meet.