A new super PAC, Guardrails Alliance, was launched Thursday by Democratic operatives Shaunna Thomas and Leah Hunt-Hendrix, with backing from tech employees and labor groups. The group says it has $5 million available now and plans to raise $15 million this cyc
For weeks, an internet fight has been brewing inside the AI industry—ads, influence money, and carefully chosen narratives about what regulation should look like. Then a new player stepped onto the battlefield, backed by people who work in the middle of the AI boom.
On Thursday. Democratic operatives Shaunna Thomas and Leah Hunt-Hendrix launched the Guardrails Alliance. a super PAC dedicated to supporting AI legislation. The push is being fueled by a grassroots movement among everyday tech workers who want their companies to develop and deploy AI responsibly. and the new political vehicle is designed to turn that pressure into campaign spending.
Thomas framed it as more than standard political organizing. “Our fundamental belief here is that people still do have the power to stop this autocratic takeover of the Trump administration and the tech sector,” she told The New York Times.
Guardrails positions itself as a populist movement powered by small donations from people “in the trenches of the AI boom.” It has about $5 million at its disposal today and plans to raise $15 million this cycle. That’s still far less than what its biggest opponents can muster. Leading the Future, backed by tech leaders including OpenAI President Greg Brockman, has more than $100 million.
Guardrails is already putting money behind its agenda. The PAC plans to buy ads to support Alex Bores. a New York congressional candidate who became Leading the Future’s first target and is running in the primaries next week. On Thursday. Bores shared an ad featuring the parents of Adam Raine. the teenager who died by suicide after months of prolonged conversations with ChatGPT.
Bores isn’t only fighting for ad time. He is also drawing help from another pro-legislation super PAC, Public First Action, which has backing from Anthropic.
The counter-programming isn’t landing in a vacuum. OpenAI has tried to distance itself from Brockman’s donations, but many employees are reportedly unconvinced. Several have voiced concerns on social media about Leading the Future’s attacks on Bores.
Guardrails is also tapping into earlier tech-worker mobilization. This year, tech workers have demanded their chiefs end contracts with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). They have also urged the Pentagon to withdraw its designation of Anthropic as a supply chain risk—a label critics say was imposed without due process in retaliation for Anthropic’s limits on its technology being used for mass surveillance and autonomous warfare.
The emotional punch of Guardrails’ message is that it doesn’t want to compete with the spending power of the biggest AI donors. It wants to give people who are already alarmed somewhere to act. “This is not about matching [Leading the Future] dollar for dollar,” Thomas said. “What this vehicle is meant to do is be a political home for people who are concerned about the way the anti-regulation AI tech sector is trying to manipulate elections.”.
TechCrunch has reached out to the Guardrails Alliance.
AI legislation super PAC Guardrails Alliance tech workers Shaunna Thomas Leah Hunt-Hendrix Alex Bores Leading the Future Greg Brockman OpenAI Anthropic Public First Action Adam Raine ChatGPT ICE contracts Pentagon supply chain risk