NIST: CAISI, Barriers to AI Adoption

Echoing our previous input on NIST's AI 600-1 Generative AI Profile, the AI Risk Management Framework, and the AI Agent Standards Initiative, we will join CAISI's Listening Sessions on Barriers to AI Adoption. The sessions relate directly to the Agent Standards Initiative's push to identify what enables or blocks confident, secure deployment of AI and AI agent systems in production environments.

Related

• NIST: Generative AI Profile (AI 600-1) and AI Risk Management Framework (AI RMF)

• PCAST: Working Group on Generative AI (Updated)

• U.S. Access Board: Executive Order on AI and Accessibility

• OECD: G7 Hiroshima AI Process Reporting Framework (HAIP)

NIST CAISI Barriers to AI Adoption

The Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI) at NIST, formerly the U.S. AI Safety Institute, announced the listening sessions on 17 February 2026 as part of its broader AI Agent Standards Initiative, launched the same day to support interoperable and secure AI agent systems across three pillars: industry-led standards development, community-led open-source protocol development, and foundational security and identity research. The sessions, held virtually and organized by sector, sought concrete examples of both successful and failed AI implementation efforts in healthcare, financial services, and education, along with the contextual factors that shaped those outcomes. Applicants were asked to submit a one-page description of adoption barriers tied to specific use cases, with participation deliberately limited to a curated range of domain stakeholders rather than open to all interested parties, prioritizing depth of evidence from procurement, evaluation, and integration practitioners.

The listening sessions complement CAISI's parallel Request for Information on securing AI agent systems and the Information Technology Laboratory's concept paper on AI agent identity and authorization, which proposes applying existing identity standards, including OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, and SPIFFE/SPIRE, to autonomous agents as distinct non-human identities requiring lifecycle management. Together, these efforts are intended to translate real-world deployment experience into concrete guidance and standards work under America's AI Action Plan, with a particular focus on the compliance, governance, and cybersecurity risks that arise as organizations move AI agents from experimentation into production. Our contribution focuses on barriers specific to physical and embodied AI systems and assistive infrastructure, sectors where procurement and integration challenges differ meaningfully from purely software-based agent deployments.

References

¹ National Institute of Standards and Technology. "CAISI to Host Listening Sessions on Barriers to AI Adoption." NIST. February 17, 2026.

² National Institute of Standards and Technology. "Announcing the AI Agent Standards Initiative for Interoperable and Secure Innovation." NIST. February 17, 2026.

³ National Institute of Standards and Technology, National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence. "Accelerating the Adoption of Software and AI Agent Identity and Authorization." Concept Paper. February 2026.