The Federal Trade Commission is investigating OpenAI, Anthropic and other artificial intelligence organizations as federal regulators examine whether increasingly powerful AI agents could create risks for consumers.
The investigation is expected to seek information from major AI developers about their products and safety practices. The FTC is also preparing formal demands that could require executives to testify as regulators examine whether company practices violate federal consumer protection law.
The investigation comes after several incidents involving AI agents — systems designed to do more than answer questions and can take actions on a user’s behalf. OpenAI disclosed in July that two of its AI models were responsible for a cyberattack targeting AI platform Hugging Face. More recently, OpenAI said its agents interacted with several U.S. government websites in unexpected ways, although the company said it found no evidence that government accounts or nonpublic information were compromised.
AI agents are becoming an increasingly important part of the industry’s next phase. Companies are developing systems that can browse websites, write and run computer code, conduct research and complete multistep tasks with less human involvement. Those abilities can make AI more useful, but they also increase the potential consequences when a system behaves in an unexpected way.
FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson has indicated that AI developers could be held responsible when their systems cause harm. The investigation could help establish how existing U.S. consumer protection laws apply as AI companies give their systems greater ability to act independently in the digital world.
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