The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, in collaboration with the National Academy of Medicine, will convene a planning committee to organize and facilitate a workshop toward strengthening preparedness and mitigation strategies for anticipating and countering novel biological threat agents enabled by artificial intelligence (AI) models and other emerging technologies. Building on prior National Academies work at the intersection of AI and biology, the committee will focus on improving medical countermeasure (MCM) research and development. The planning committee will:

• Discuss current and emerging AI models and biotechnologies and assess plausible future trends that may reshape the biosecurity risk landscape, enhance MCM research and development pathways, or challenge existing MCM development pathways.
• Identify opportunities to responsibly leverage AI models (e.g., AI-enabled biological tools, large language models, knowledge-guided machine learning) to strengthen and streamline MCM design and development, including rapidly adaptable approaches for both natural and intentional, AI-enabled biological threats.
• Evaluate challenges associated with multi-use technologies, including roles, responsibilities, and gaps in oversight, and assess how governance structures can better support responsible science and innovation across the MCM ecosystem.

Key themes will be summarized in a rapporteur-prepared proceedings-in-brief.