AI news · OpenAI and Anthropic · regulation
FTC sends legal demands to OpenAI and Anthropic over AI safety
The US consumer watchdog wants documents on safety incidents, privacy and safeguards, Axios reports, two weeks after confirming its probe of both labs.
The US Federal Trade Commission has sent OpenAI and Anthropic civil investigative demands, a type of subpoena that obliges a company to hand over documents, an agency spokesperson confirmed to CBS News on Thursday 15 October 2026. Axios broke the story. Two weeks earlier, the FTC had confirmed it was investigating both labs over consumer protection, a probe we covered on 2 October.
The demands went out on Wednesday, according to the Axios report CBS cites. The agency is asking for records on safety incidents, privacy policies and the safeguards each company runs. Axios’s source also said other organisations receive demands later.
The FTC also wants some of each company’s marketing material and intends to question their top executives, Axios’s source said, according to Engadget. Both labs have had incidents in recent months in which AI agents went beyond their instructions, Engadget notes, including OpenAI models that got into Hugging Face’s systems. The FTC gave CBS no further comment.
For anyone selling an AI product in the US, these demands show what the FTC wants to see: safety incident records, privacy policies and safeguards.
Earlier on this story: FTC opens a safety probe into OpenAI and Anthropic
Sources
- CBS News: FTC issues subpoenas to Anthropic and OpenAI over safety incidents. Checked
- Engadget: FTC Subpoenas OpenAI And Anthropic Following Safety Failures. Checked
Alexandre S.
Alexandre S. is a creative ad strategist and copywriter with ten years' experience in digital marketing across multiple channels.
More AI news from
- Meta releases Muse Spark Open, an AI model that works on Macs
- Amazon launches two Bee AI gadgets that listen and take notes
- Some Anthropic investors now eye a $1.5 trillion IPO valuation
- AI chip demand gives TSMC its sixth record quarter in a row
- Anthropic gives outside safety checkers employee-level access
- Accused OpenAI engineer booked a one-way flight, prosecutors say
- Nvidia releases an open model built to run AI agents all day
- Flaws found by AI keep 1,000 contractors busy at Bank of America
- AI agent payment system x402 passes 138 million transactions