OpenAI’s global policy chief Chris Lehane confirmed on Tuesday, September 15, 2026, that the company has been in discussions with rivals Anthropic and Google DeepMind on AI safety for several weeks. Lehane made the disclosure to reporters while in Washington to work with U.S. lawmakers on addressing catastrophic risks associated with AI.
The talks follow an essay published Saturday by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, calling on the industry to collectively slow the pace of frontier AI development to avoid catastrophic risks. OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Google’s Demis Hassabis, and SpaceXAI’s Elon Musk all voiced support for Amodei’s call to action. Altman said OpenAI would join Anthropic in embedding third-party evaluators into the company to monitor for safety.
The three companies are also reportedly working together to create a standards body for the AI industry — a move Altman told staff would need to proceed without U.S. government support, according to The Information. Hassabis had called on the U.S. in July to establish such a body, with authority to screen advanced AI models and coordinate industry-wide slowdowns if dangers escalated.
The coordination raises potential legal concerns. Altman and others have noted the talks could risk violating antitrust law if found to suppress competition. Amodei’s essay proposed a narrow government waiver to permit safety coordination, but Lehane said the firms do not believe one is necessary.
Lehane also said OpenAI supports a provision in the FRONTIER Act that would require top frontier labs to allow independent verification organizations inside their companies to ensure models are developed safely.
The effort faces political headwinds. President Trump has dismissed AI safety concerns as a hoax and warned that any slowdown would benefit China. His AI advisor David Sacks echoed that position, calling fears of existential risk from AI overblown.
Source: TechCrunch