UK’s AI Safety Institute staff take leave for stress amid scrutiny

The organization charged with evaluating whether cutting-edge AI models pose risks to national security is struggling with a very human problem: its own people are breaking down under the pressure. Several staff at the UK’s AI Safety Institute, known as AISI, are currently on sick leave and receiving psychological counselling due to stress, according to a Financial Times report published on September 22, 2026. The causes range from grueling testing schedules to the existential weight of what they’re actually finding inside unreleased AI systems. What’s driving the burnout AISI’s core job is to evaluate frontier AI models before they reach the public. Staff on the cyber-security and bio-chemistry teams have raised alarms about AI’s growing ability to discover unknown software vulnerabilities and, more troublingly, to generate novel biological threats. One former employee described the resulting atmosphere inside the institute as stressful and, at times, toxic. Tight deadlines compound the problem. Testing unreleased models from companies racing to ship products creates a constant time crunch. A turbulent restructuring In May 2026, the societal resilience team was merged into the hum...