Strengthening Our National Security in the AI Era

**Executive summary:** This commentary argues the Biden administration's executive order on cybersecurity is timely and necessary to address chronic federal weaknesses—legacy IT, skills gaps, limited endpoint visibility, and rising exploitation of vulnerabilities—and advocates that AI and automation provide a viable path to strengthen software supply chain integrity, improve patch and vulnerability management, and free cybersecurity talent for higher-value tasks while emphasizing careful adoption, rigorous testing, and transparent disclosure practices.