Measurement Gaps
Measurement gaps are milestones and metrics that we cannot yet track. Each public update either converts the gap into a tracked metric, turns it into a future milestone or backlog item, or keeps it as a research agenda item with rationale.
The plan still needs standard definitions for several indicators that will be important for tracking progress, including:
- ◇how to define the "relevant frontier AI / biological AI model developers"
- ◇a clear metric for defining "high-risk biological services" included in KYC and threat reporting
- ◇a standard threshold for what counts as an "operational sentinel site"
- ◇a practical definition of "essential workforce" for PPE planning by jurisdiction
- ◇a common method for measuring readiness of medical countermeasure platforms before a crisis
- ◇a standard maturity scale for coordination mechanisms beyond simple existence.
- ◇Stronger metric for synthesis-screening effectiveness, not just coverage
- ◇better measure of KYC quality, not merely nominal adoption
- ◇standard for what counts as an effective AI safeguard for open-weight and proprietary models
- ◇defensible indicator for improved research governance across jurisdictions
- ◇standard methodology for measuring germicidal-lighting effectiveness across settings
- ◇better annual measure of medical-countermeasure readiness than simple project count
- ◇formal benchmark for coordination performance in exercises.
- ◇Shared methodology for measuring effective compliance in synthesis screening across jurisdictions
- ◇specific metrics for success in misuse monitoring and threat-intelligence sharing
- ◇better benchmark for early-warning sensitivity and false-positive burden
- ◇cleaner way to measure real population coverage of surveillance, not just site count
- ◇measure of the practical protective value of PPE stockpiles, not just nominal inventory
- ◇more precise deployment metrics for built-environment biohardening
- ◇common testing standard for partial progress toward 100-day capability before the full end-state is reached.
- ◇More ambitious and better-specified annual metric for essential-worker PPE access
- ◇rigorous operational metric for attribution capability, not just doctrine or exercise count
- ◇clearer definition of effective population coverage for surveillance
- ◇better annual metrics for built-environment protection beyond installation counts
- ◇more concrete metric for communication readiness and public trust during response activation.
The plan should conclude with an outcomes and accountability annex that explains how annual metrics roll up into the overarching strategic claim of durable defensive advantage. Without that annex, the plan will have many strong activity and coverage indicators, but a weaker story about whether those indicators add up to materially lower catastrophic vulnerability.