Von der Leyen tells EU lawmakers frontier AI should slow down, warning of hacking 'on a level we never thought possible'

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen used her State of the European Union 2026 address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg on September 16 to call for slower frontier AI development. She said she will invite the leading AI labs to discuss how the EU can support their own efforts to slow down, and committed the EU to joint work with Canada, the United Kingdom and other partners on evaluating and verifying advanced models, early warning and AI security. Her argument rested on cyber risk. 'Models being developed will allow hacking on a level we never thought possible,' she told lawmakers, warning that adversaries will soon have such models and that European governments, companies and network defenders are exposed. She called herself an optimist about AI's potential to benefit humanity 'if we get it right,' but said that potential comes with 'massive risks' that must be tackled before the benefit can be achieved. She named AI and climate change as the two issues that will decide Europe's future prosperity and security. Help Net Security observed that the concrete steps announced against the hacking threat amounted to partnerships and a meeting. The speech also promised new protections against social media's 'capture' of children. The address comes days after frontier lab chiefs pledged to pace development. It puts the EU's executive on record supporting a slowdown and offering to help verify models rather than leaving evaluation to the labs alone. What form that support takes was not specified.