Regulatory Consulting at Third Way

Overview

Third Way is a center-left think tank that positions itself as a pragmatic counterweight to both hands-off deregulation and the most restrictive AI-safety advocacy, arguing that Washington should actively help American AI innovators succeed rather than treat their profitability as suspect. Its tech-policy team, closely tracking the transatlantic regulatory divide, publishes a running ‘Tech Policy Look Ahead’ series and periodic AI-agenda reports aimed at Democratic and moderate policymakers who want AI to strengthen U.S. competitiveness without abandoning governance. Third Way’s framing is explicitly centrist: it supports government as ‘a critical partner’ to innovation while rejecting the idea that political hostility toward successful AI companies serves the public interest — a position distinct from both the anti-regulation right and the accountability-focused progressive wing represented elsewhere in this directory.

AI-Focused Regulatory Work

Third Way’s ‘An AI Agenda for a New Era: Advance, Protect, & Implement’ lays out its core thesis in three imperatives: advance American AI leadership (including overhauling high-skill immigration to attract global AI talent and rolling back tariffs that raise costs on emerging technology), protect Americans from AI’s genuine risks, and implement policy that actually works rather than symbolic gestures. The report is candid that ‘government regulation is important’ but warns that treating AI companies’ success as something to be punished, rather than encouraged, will not help Americans capture AI’s benefits — a deliberately centrist rebuke aimed at both anti-regulatory populists and the most restrictionist safety advocates. Third Way’s ongoing ‘Tech Policy 2026 Look Ahead’ tracks the widening transatlantic split in real time: it flagged European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s 2025–26 campaign to unwind EU data-privacy and AI rules amid lagging European growth and competitive fears, and is watching whether the Trump administration will use trade negotiations to press for further European rollbacks — exactly the kind of cross-border regulatory dynamic that matters for any U.S. AI company operating internationally. For a directory reader, Third Way is useful as the moderate-Democratic pole in the AI-policy spectrum: pro-innovation and pro-immigration on AI talent, but still committed to Washington playing an active governance role rather than stepping back entirely.

Notable AI Policy Work

• Published ‘An AI Agenda for a New Era: Advance, Protect, & Implement,’ a three-part framework arguing Washington should help American AI innovators succeed, protect Americans from AI’s real risks, and implement policy that works.
• Called for overhauling high-skill immigration and visa policy to attract global AI talent to the U.S., and for eliminating tariffs that raise costs on emerging AI-related technology and components.
• Runs the ongoing ‘Tech Policy Look Ahead’ series (2026 edition), tracking the EU’s campaign to unwind data-privacy and AI rules and its implications for U.S.-EU trade and regulatory dynamics.
• Positions itself as a centrist counterweight to both anti-regulatory deregulation advocates and the most restrictive AI-safety positions within the progressive coalition.

Thought Leadership

1. An AI Agenda for a New Era: Advance, Protect, & Implement
   Third Way’s core AI framework — advancing U.S. AI leadership through immigration and trade policy, protecting Americans from real risks, and implementing workable governance.
2. Tech Policy 2026 Look Ahead
   Tracks the EU’s 2025–26 campaign to unwind AI and data-privacy rules and the trade-negotiation dynamics that could affect U.S. AI companies operating in Europe.

Clients

Nonpartisan-in-name but center-left-oriented nonprofit think tank; no commercial clients. Engages moderate Democratic and bipartisan congressional offices on technology and innovation policy.