113
witnesses at US congressional hearings on general AI governance, 2017–2025 (House 60, Senate 53)

What the chart shows

Hearings on general AI governance heard 113 witnesses between 2017 and 2025, 60 in the House and 53 in the Senate, the most of any subject. National security and defence came second with 74 (49 House, 25 Senate).

The House heard more witnesses than the Senate on every subject except health and biomedical AI, where each chamber heard 9. The widest gap was in finance and economic policy: 36 in the House against 3 in the Senate. Four subjects, including energy and transportation, had House witnesses only.

Key numbers

MeasureValue
General AI governance, House60
General AI governance, Senate53
National security and defence, House49
National security and defence, Senate25
Finance and economic policy, House36
Finance and economic policy, Senate3

How to read it

  • Counts witness appearances by the subject of the hearing, as classified by the AI Index.
  • Subjects without a Senate bar had no Senate witnesses in the data. Sorted by House witnesses.
Source: AI Index, 2026, via the AI Index Report 2026 (Stanford HAI), figure 8.4.9: Number of witnesses in US congressional AI-related hearings by subject area, 2017–25. Chart and text by AI Adoption.
Numbers checked against the published data on 20 October 2026.
Download the data (CSV) · Cite this chart