Plus: how wastewater tracking could help curb measles' rise in the US. Can ChatGPT Health do better? For the past two decades, there's been a clear first step for anyone who starts experiencing new medical symptoms: Look them up online. The practice was so common that it gained the pejorative moniker "Dr. But times are changing, and many medical-information seekers are now using LLMs. According to OpenAI, 230 million people ask ChatGPT health-related queries each week.

In 2026, states will go head to head with the White House's sweeping executive order. In the final weeks of 2025, the battle over regulating artificial intelligence in the US reached a boiling point. On December 11, after Congress failed twice to pass a law banning state AI laws, President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order seeking to handcuff states from regulating the booming industry. Instead, he vowed to work with Congress to establish a "minimally burdensome" national AI policy, one that would position the US to win the global AI race. The move marked a qualified victory for tech titans, who have been marshaling multimillion-dollar war chests to oppose AI regulations, arguing that a patchwork of state laws would stifle innovation. In 2026, the battleground will shift to the courts.

Donald Trump, center, signs a an executive order on artificial intelligence in the Oval Office on December 11. He is joined by, from left, AI advisor Sriram Krishnan, Senator Ted Cruz, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and AI and crypto czar David Sacks. Donald Trump, center, signs a an executive order on artificial intelligence in the Oval Office on December 11. He is joined by, from left, AI advisor Sriram Krishnan, Senator Ted Cruz, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and AI and crypto czar David Sacks. Last week, President Donald Trump signaled his allegiance to the AI industry yet again by signing an executive order that aims to block states from regulating AI.

OpenAI turned 10 yesterday, and President Donald Trump incidentally gave the company a very special birthday gift: a sweeping executive order aiming to dismantle and preempt many state-level regulations of artificial intelligence. "There's only going to be one winner here, and it's probably going to be the U.S. or China," Trump said in a press conference announcing the order. And for the United States to win, "we have to be unified. Almost all of the AI industry's biggest players have been pushing for this move. OpenAI has been asking all year for the Trump administration to preempt state-level AI regulations, which the company believes would be burdensome in various ways; Microsoft, Google, Meta, Nvidia, and the major venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz have made similar requests.

US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order aimed at blocking states from enforcing their own artificial intelligence (AI) regulations. We want to have one central source of approval, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday. It will give the Trump administration tools to push back on the most onerous state rules, said White House AI adviser David Sacks. The government will not oppose AI regulations around children's safety, he added. The move marks a win for technology giants who have called for US-wide AI legislation as it could have a major impact on America's goal of leading the fast-developing industry.

The order creates a Justice Department task force to challenge state AI laws and directs the Commerce Department to pull future broadband funding from states that pass "onerous" legislation. President Donald Trump signed a highly anticipated executive order on Thursday that sets in motion a plan to establish a national regulatory framework for artificial intelligence while undercutting states' abilities to enact their own rules. The order, titled "Ensuring a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence," creates an AI litigation task force within the Justice Department to directly challenge state AI laws the administration finds to conflict with federal policy. It also directs the Department of Commerce to craft guidelines that could make states ineligible for future broadband funding if they pass "onerous" AI laws. The push for sweeping federal preemption of state AI laws has largely been fueled by AI investors, conservative policy shops, and tech industry trade groups.

What we still don't know about weight-loss drugs Weight-loss drugs have been back in the news this week. First, we heard that Eli Lilly, the company behind Mounjaro and Zepbound, became the first healthcare company in the world to achieve a trillion-dollar valuation. But we also learned that, disappointingly, GLP-1 drugs don't seem to help people with Alzheimer's disease. And that people who stop taking the drugs when they become pregnant can experience potentially dangerous levels of weight gain. On top of that, some researchers worry that people are using the drugs postpartum to lose pregnancy weight without understanding potential risks. All of this news should serve as a reminder that there's a lot we still don't know about these drugs.

The draft order, obtained by WIRED, instructs the US Justice Department to sue states that pass laws regulating AI. US President Donald Trump is considering signing an executive order that would seek to challenge state efforts to regulate artificial intelligence through lawsuits and the withholding federal funding, WIRED has learned. A draft of the order viewed by WIRED directs US Attorney General Pam Bondi to create an "AI Litigation Task Force," whose purpose is to sue states in court for passing AI regulations that allegedly violate federal laws governing things like free speech and interstate commerce. Trump could sign the order, which is currently titled "Eliminating State Law Obstruction of National AI Policy," as early as this week, according to four sources familiar with the matter. A White House spokesperson told WIRED that "discussion about potential executive orders is speculation."

Early frameworks like the EU's AI Act focused on highly visible applications - banning high-risk uses in health, employment and law enforcement to prevent societal harms. But countries now target the underlying building blocks of AI. China restricts models to combat deepfakes and inauthentic content. Citing national security risks, the US controls the exports of the most advanced chips and, under Biden, even model weights - the "secret sauce" that turns user queries into results. These AI regulations are hiding in dense administrative language - "Implementation of Additional Export Controls" or "Supercomputer and Semiconductor End Use" bury the ledes. But behind this complex language is a clear trend: regulation is moving from AI applications to its building blocks.

The UN's AI warnings grow louder Welcome back to In the Loop, new twice-weekly newsletter about AI. It was a busy week for our team: Tharin Pillay was on site during the UN General Assembly in New York, while Harry Booth and Nikita Ostrovsky were at the "All In AI" event in Montreal. If you're reading this in your browser, why not subscribe to have the next one delivered straight to your inbox? The United Nations General Assembly met this week in New York. While the assembly members spent much of their time on the crises in Palestine and Sudan, they also devoted a good chunk to AI.