OpenAI confirms weeks of AI-safety talks with Anthropic, Google

OpenAI global policy chief Chris Lehane told reporters Tuesday that the company has been working with rivals Anthropic and Google DeepMind on AI safety for weeks, as first reported by Bloomberg; Lehane is reportedly in Washington working with U.S. lawmakers on catastrophic AI risks. The disclosure follows Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s essay, published Saturday, calling for the industry to work together to slow the pace of frontier AI development and avoid catastrophic risks. AI leaders across the industry — including OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Google’s Demis Hassabis, and SpaceX’s Elon Musk — backed Amodei’s call, with Altman saying OpenAI would join Anthropic in embedding third-party evaluators to monitor for safety.

Lehane acknowledged the three companies have been in talks for weeks on AI safety, confirming earlier reporting and hints that they were coordinating; some, including Altman, have noted such talks could raise antitrust concerns if the coordination is found to suppress competition. Amodei’s essay proposed a narrow government waiver allowing safety coordination, but Lehane reportedly said the firms don’t believe they need one. In an interview with Fortune last week, Altman had hinted he’d been in private discussions with other AI leaders, and this week The Information reported the three companies are working together to create a standards body for the AI industry — something Altman reportedly told staff would need to happen without U.S. government support. Google’s Hassabis called in July for the U.S. to establish a new standards body to act as an AI watchdog, with power to screen frontier models and coordinate industrywide slowdowns if dangers progressed.

President Trump has dismissed safety concerns as a hoax and pushed back on tighter regulation, arguing a slowdown would give China an advantage; his AI adviser David Sacks echoed that view, saying fears of existential risk from AI were overblown. At the same Tuesday meeting, Lehane said OpenAI supports a provision in the FRONTIER Act that would require top frontier labs to allow “independent verification organizations” into their companies to ensure models are developed safely. TechCrunch has reached out to Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI for comment.

Why it matters

Confirmation of cross-lab safety coordination, alongside a push for an industry standards body, suggests the leading AI companies are trying to set their own safety framework before Washington writes one for them.