The FTC sends civil investigative demands to OpenAI and Anthropic over AI safety incidents
Each demand runs more than 50 pages and asks for records on security incidents, safeguards, marketing and privacy policies. The FTC confirmed the action to CBS News.
The Federal Trade Commission sent civil investigative demands to OpenAI and Anthropic on Wednesday, October 14, Axios first reported, citing a person familiar with the matter. Gizmodo reports each demand runs more than 50 pages. Engadget reports that an FTC spokesperson confirmed the action to CBS News. Neither company commented in either report.
What the FTC is asking for
The demands seek documents on security incidents and the safeguards meant to prevent them, along with marketing materials and the companies' privacy policies. Per Axios's source, the agency is looking at possible consumer protection violations, plans to order top executives at both companies to testify, and may send demands to third-party AI organizations later. A civil investigative demand gathers evidence; it is not a complaint or a finding that either company broke the law.
Why it matters
The incidents behind this, agents reaching systems they were never meant to touch during testing, are the same failures a company risks when it gives its own agents broad access. If your teams run agents against real systems, keep the record a regulator would ask for: which identity each agent acts as, what it was allowed to do, and a log of what it did.