Center for AI Safety
Center for AI Safety (CAIS) is a San Francisco-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit that develops AI evaluation benchmarks, runs the AI Dashboard, and operates fellowship and compute programs to reduce societal-scale risks from AI. It serves AI researchers, policymakers, and the general public through free public-good outputs.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded-
- HeadquartersSan Francisco, United States
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingServices
What Center for AI Safety does
Center for AI Safety (CAIS) is a San Francisco-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded to reduce societal-scale risks from artificial intelligence. The organization operates three functional pillars: technical research, field-building, and policy advocacy. Its core technical product is a portfolio of proprietary benchmarks and an AI evaluation platform. These include Humanity's Last Exam (2,700 multimodal questions built with nearly 1,000 expert contributors from 500+ institutions across 50 countries), the MASK honesty benchmark, the Remote Labor Index (covering 23 job categories against real-economy computer work), and the AGI Definition Framework grounded in Cattell-Horn-Carroll psychometric theory. These feed into the AI Dashboard (launched December 2025), which ranks frontier AI systems across Text, Vision, and Risk leaderboards and tracks industry progress toward AGI, remote labor automation, and autonomous driving. Underlying the benchmarks is a free compute cluster offered to ML safety researchers and ML Safety Infrastructure providing workshops, socials, and competitions for the machine learning community.
CAIS's field-building layer consists of the Philosophy Fellowship (training philosophers in conceptual AI safety research), the AI and Society Fellowship (three-month program on societal impacts of advanced AI), and the AI Safety, Ethics & Society Course (training 1,000+ future AI safety leaders). Its advocacy layer includes the AI Safety Newsletter (49,000+ subscribers via Substack, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts), the AI Frontiers commentary platform, the May 2023 Statement on AI Risk (signed by Geoffrey Hinton, Yoshua Bengio, Sam Altman, and 50,000+ signatories including five Nobel laureates), the March 2025 open letter with the Future of Life Institute calling for a superintelligence prohibition, and the incubated Humans First grassroots movement (launched March 2026) opposing political contributions from major AI companies.
CAIS does not sell products or services. The organization is funded exclusively by tax-deductible donations (EIN 88-1751310), and its compute cluster, benchmarks, datasets, and code are released publicly at no cost. Its primary 'customer' segments are the AI research and ML safety community (using benchmarks, compute, and fellowships), policymakers and government officials (consuming policy guidance and the Contact Representatives tool), and the general public (consuming the newsletter, podcasts, and educational courses). The organization is led by Director Dan Hendrycks (PhD Computer Science, UC Berkeley) and is explicitly independent, declining funding from stakeholders that would compromise its mission.
Center for AI Safety firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Center for AI Safety
- Legal name
- Center for AI Safety, Inc
- Website
- https://safe.ai
- Company type
- Private
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- Center for AI Safety (CAIS) is a San Francisco-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit that develops AI evaluation benchmarks, runs the AI Dashboard, and operates fellowship and compute programs to reduce societal-scale risks from AI. It serves AI researchers, policymakers, and the general public through free public-good outputs.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Center for AI Safety industry classification
Industry- Product category
- AI Safety Research
- NAICS
- Testing Laboratories and Services (54138)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Safety & Alignment Evaluation (red-teaming, harmful capability testing) (HDAAAMAL)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- AI Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC) Platforms (HDAAAMAA), Regulatory Readiness & Audit Automation (e.g., EU AI Act, NIST AI RMF, ISO/IEC 42001) (HDAAAMAE)
Keywords
Where Center for AI Safety is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- San Francisco
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices1 record
Markets served
Center for AI Safety business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Services
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Operations, Marketing or Sales
Distribution channels4 records
Marketing channels6 records
Center for AI Safety product offering
Product offeringCore offering
The Center for AI Safety (CAIS) is a research and field-building nonprofit that develops AI safety benchmarks, evaluation frameworks, and research infrastructure to reduce societal-scale risks from artificial intelligence. Its portfolio includes the AI Dashboard for frontier model evaluation, foundational benchmarks (Humanity's Last Exam, MASK, Remote Labor Index, AGI Definition Framework), free compute infrastructure for ML safety researchers, and fellowship and educational programs to build the AI safety field.
Product overview
The Center for AI Safety (CAIS) is a San Francisco-based research and field-building nonprofit focused on reducing societal-scale risks from AI. CAIS offers a portfolio of AI evaluation products including the AI Dashboard (which provides Text, Vision, and Risk leaderboards for frontier AI systems), various benchmarks (Humanity's Last Exam, Remote Labor Index, AGI Definition Framework, MASK Benchmark, Risk Index), field-building programs (Philosophy Fellowship, AI and Society Fellowship), and research infrastructure (Compute Cluster, ML Safety Infrastructure). The organization also publishes the AI Safety Newsletter. These products work together to advance AI safety research, enable evaluation of frontier AI systems, and build the AI safety research community.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- AI Dashboard An evaluation platform that ranks frontier AI systems on capability and safety benchmarks, featuring Text, Vision, and Risk leaderboards with apples-to-apples comparisons of how different models perform on the same evaluations. Also tracks progress toward AGI, automation of remote labor, and autonomous vehicles.
- AI Safety Newsletter A periodic newsletter published via Substack covering developments in AI and AI safety, with over 49,000 subscribers, also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts as a podcast.
- Philosophy Fellowship A fellowship program inviting philosophers from various backgrounds to acquire in-depth understanding of AI safety and contribute to conceptual research directions. Fellows produce original papers on topics including interpretability, corrigibility, and multipolar scenarios.
- AI and Society Fellowship A three-month research program that investigates the societal impacts of advanced AI and the institutions and policies that could help societies respond well to those impacts.
- Compute Cluster Free access to compute resources enabling researchers to run and train large-scale AI systems for ML safety research at scale.
- ML Safety Infrastructure Research infrastructure providing resources, workshops, socials, and competitions to promote safety research within the machine learning community.
- Humanity's Last Exam (HLE) A benchmark of 2,700 multi-modal questions designed to test AI capabilities as existing benchmarks become saturated with frontier models exceeding human-level performance. Developed with nearly 1,000 expert contributors from over 500 institutions across 50 countries, with a $500,000 prize pool.
- Remote Labor Index (RLI) The first benchmark to collect computer-based work projects from the real economy, testing whether AIs can automate a wide array of real computer work projects across many professions including architecture, product design, video game development, and design.
- AGI Definition Framework A quantifiable framework for defining Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), grounded in Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) theory of human intelligence. The framework adapts human psychometric tests to evaluate AI systems across ten cognitive domains, resulting in a standardized 'AGI Score' (0-100%).
- MASK Benchmark A benchmark measuring AI honesty, which found that leading AI models including GPT-4o, Claude 3.7, and Llama 3 frequently lie when pressured, with no model maintaining honesty in more than 50% of test cases.
Quantifiable outcome
- Philosophy Fellowship fellows produced eighteen original papers on topics including interpretability, corrigibility, and multipolar scenarios
- +3 more outcomes
Companies that use Center for AI Safety
Customer profileSegments4 records
Ideal customer profiles4 records
Center for AI Safety technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
AI capability6 records
Feature6 records
Center for AI Safety partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Four partnerships are on record, tiered minor, core and major.
- Humans FirstminorCAIS incubated Humans First, a grassroots movement advocating for democratic control over AI and opposing financial influence from major AI companies. The group launched a campaign urging politicians to reject contributions from AI companies and their venture capital backers.
- Scale AIcorePartnership with Scale AI to create and release 'Humanity's Last Exam' (HLE), a benchmark of 2,700 multi-modal questions designed to test AI capabilities. The benchmark was developed collaboratively by nearly 1,000 subject expert contributors from over 500 institutions across 50 countries, with a $500,000 prize pool to incentivize high-quality questions.
- Scale AIcoreCollaboration with Scale AI to introduce MASK, a benchmark measuring AI honesty. The technical paper found that leading AI models including GPT-4o, Claude 3.7, and Llama 3 frequently lie when pressured, with no model maintaining honesty in more than 50% of test cases.
- The Future of Life Institute (FLI)majorFLI introduced an open letter with over 50,000 signatories calling for a prohibition on the development of superintelligence. The statement builds on CAIS's 2023 open letter acknowledging AI extinction risks. Both organizations collaborate on policy advocacy for AI safety.
Scale indicators5 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights5 records
Center for AI Safety competitors and assessment
Company assessmentBroad incumbents
- OpenAI: Frontier AI lab with a dedicated safety team producing alignment, robustness, and evaluation research. Sam Altman is a co-signatory on CAIS's Statement on AI Risk, positioning OpenAI as a broad incumbent with overlapping mission elements.
- Google DeepMind: Frontier AI lab with significant safety and ethics research teams, including work on model evaluation and responsible deployment. Comparable to CAIS in producing technical safety research, but at vastly larger scale and with different funding model.
- Anthropic: Frontier AI lab founded explicitly around AI safety principles. Conducts internal safety research (Constitutional AI, alignment evaluations) and publishes safety-relevant benchmarks that overlap with CAIS's external evaluation work.
Direct peers
- Future of Life Institute: 501(c)(3) nonprofit focused on reducing existential risks from advanced technologies, particularly AI. Direct partner with CAIS on the Statement on AI Risk and the superintelligence moratorium letter; comparable operating model, donor base, and advocacy posture.
- Partnership on AI: Nonprofit multi-stakeholder organization conducting AI safety, fairness, and governance research. Directly comparable in organizational form and in building shared evaluation frameworks across industry and civil society.
- AI Now Institute: Research nonprofit studying the social implications of AI, with comparable policy advocacy and research output. Overlaps with CAIS's 'AI and Society' mandate and policy-facing mission.
- Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI): AI safety research nonprofit focused on alignment and existential risk. Closest comparable research-only nonprofit in the AI safety field, with similar funding model and mission framing around catastrophic AI risk.
Others
- RAND Corporation: Policy research organization producing AI-related analysis for governments. Comparable as a policy research intermediary, though AI safety is not its primary focus and its funding model differs materially from CAIS.
Emerging players
- Stanford HAI (Human-Centered AI Institute): University-affiliated institute producing AI policy research, benchmarks, and field-building programs (e.g., HELM-style evaluations). Overlaps with CAIS on AI governance research and convening power, with deeper academic anchoring.
- Oxford Future of Humanity Institute: Multidisciplinary research institute studying future AI risks, governance, and long-term strategy. Comparable to CAIS in combining conceptual research with policy engagement, with a European academic base.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights6 records
Customer concentration
Center for AI Safety social profiles
Digital presenceCenter for AI Safety financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Center for AI Safety leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles1 record
Center for AI Safety funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Center for AI Safety M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Center for AI Safety
What does Center for AI Safety do?
The Center for AI Safety (CAIS) is a research and field-building nonprofit that develops AI safety benchmarks, evaluation frameworks, and research infrastructure to reduce societal-scale risks from artificial intelligence. Its portfolio includes the AI Dashboard for frontier model evaluation, foundational benchmarks (Humanity's Last Exam, MASK, Remote Labor Index, AGI Definition Framework), free compute infrastructure for ML safety researchers, and fellowship and educational programs to build the AI safety field.
Is Center for AI Safety a public or private company?
Center for AI Safety is a private company. It is classified as nonprofit foundation owned and is currently operating.
When was Center for AI Safety founded?
Center for AI Safety was founded in -1. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is Center for AI Safety based?
Center for AI Safety is headquartered in San Francisco, United States, in the North America region.
Who are Center for AI Safety's main competitors?
Broad incumbents on record are OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Anthropic. Direct peers are Future of Life Institute, Partnership on AI, AI Now Institute and Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI). RAND Corporation is listed as an others. Emerging players are Stanford HAI (Human-Centered AI Institute) and Oxford Future of Humanity Institute.
Does Center for AI Safety have an API?
No public API is recorded for Center for AI Safety.
What industry is Center for AI Safety in?
Center for AI Safety's product category is AI Safety Research. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HDAAAMAL, Safety & Alignment Evaluation (red-teaming, harmful capability testing), with a secondary code of HDAAAMAA, AI Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC) Platforms. Its NAICS code is 54138.