directly decarboxylative cyanation reactions of common alkyl carboxylic acids remain largely elusive. Herein, we report a protocol for copper-catalyzed direct and enantioselective decarboxylative cyanation of benzylic acids. The in situ activation of acid substrates by a commercially inexpensive hypervalentiodine(III) reagent promoted the yield of the alkyl radicals undermild reaction conditions without
secondary, and tertiary alkyl nitriles and thiocyanates are easily synthesized. Moreover, an asymmetric decarboxylative cyanation by applying a chiralCu catalyst is also developed to afford chiral nitriles in high enantioselectivity. The mechanistic details and the origin of the high enantioselectivity are further investigated by the mechanistic experiments and the density functional theory calculations.