CFTC Task Force Announces ‘Frontier Forum’ Series, First on AI Oct. 28

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Innovation Task Force announced on September 21, 2026 that it will host the Frontier Forum Series, a series of public roundtables on the technologies transforming American financial markets. The inaugural forum, focused on artificial intelligence and agentic finance, is scheduled for Wednesday, October 28, 2026.

Roundtables billed as venues for public dialogue

According to the announcement, each Frontier Forum will provide a venue for public dialogue on the financial technologies and evolving market structures shaping what the agency calls the new frontier of finance. Each forum is to convene builders and leaders from across the public and private sectors to discuss how the Commission can promote responsible innovation while protecting market participants and preserving the integrity and resilience of U.S. financial markets.

Chairman Michael S. Selig framed the series as a way for the agency to keep pace with rapid change:

“The technologies transforming our markets are rapidly advancing, and the CFTC must engage directly with the people building, using, and studying them.”

First forum set for Oct. 28, with details to follow

The CFTC said information on the agenda, speakers and registration will be posted at a later date. Members of the public may submit speaker nominations by email, and the release notes that the number of in-person participants may be limited and that visitors will be subject to security checks.

The announcement names a topic only for the inaugural session. It does not say whether later forums will take up prediction markets or event contracts, and it describes the series as dialogue rather than announcing any regulatory action.

Task force mandate includes prediction markets and event contracts

Selig launched the Innovation Task Force on March 24, 2026, describing it as dedicated to advancing clear rules of the road for American innovators building novel products and technologies within U.S. derivatives markets. In partnership with the Innovation Advisory Committee, the task force works with the Commission on a regulatory framework for innovators focused on three areas: crypto assets and blockchain technologies, artificial intelligence and autonomous systems, and prediction markets and event contracts.

The task force is charged with executing the Commission’s innovation agenda and coordinating with other federal agencies and departments, including the Securities and Exchange Commission and its Crypto Task Force. It is led by Michael J. Passalacqua, senior advisor to the chairman.

Event contracts already active on the CFTC’s innovation docket

On its innovation page, the CFTC lists prediction markets and event contracts among its three core innovation themes and says it works through public roundtables, written input, the Innovation Advisory Committee and industry engagement to develop insights that inform Commission policy, interpretation and rulemaking considerations. The page’s innovation tracker logs several prediction-market and event-contract actions from 2026:

• March 12: The Division of Market Oversight issued a staff advisory on prediction markets that, in the agency’s description, seeks to encourage growth and innovation in these markets while reminding designated contract markets of their regulatory obligations under the Commodity Exchange Act and Commission regulations.
• Also on March 12: The CFTC published an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking information and public comment on the statutory core principles and Commission regulations that apply to prediction markets, the types of event contracts that may be prohibited as contrary to the public interest, cost-benefit considerations, and other topics.
• June 25: The agency published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking comment on amendments to CFTC Regulations Parts 15, 16 and 17 that would create an alternative framework under which reporting markets, futures commission merchants, clearing members and foreign brokers would report data for certain event contracts.
• July 24: The Division of Market Oversight issued an advisory on the self-certification of an event contract series, addressing concerns about broad, template-style certifications that combine many potential event contract variations into a single certification and reminding designated contract markets of the procedures for submitting such self-certifications.