Its mission was to make recommendations to the President and Congress to "advance the development of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and associated technologies to comprehensively address the national security and defense needs of the United States".

[7] It issued its final report in March 2021, saying that the U.S. is not sufficiently prepared to defend or compete against China in the AI era.

[11][12] Another recommendation of the NSCAI report was to develop and provide China and Russia with alternative models that are based on norms and democratic values.

[13] In October 2021, NSCAI chair Eric Schmidt founded the bipartisan, non-profit Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP) through his family led non-profit Eric & Wendy Schmidt Fund for Strategic Innovation in order to carry on the NSCAI’s efforts and expand beyond national security.

[16][17] Here is a list of members from the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence: The report's recommendations include:[18] In December 2019, a ruling was made under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) that the NSCAI must also provide historical documents upon request.