The Federal Trade Commission has initiated a broad investigation into major AI companies, including OpenAI and Anthropic. Chair Andrew Ferguson intends to use legally binding Civil Investigative Demands to obtain internal documents and conduct executive questioning. These formal orders are expected to be issued within the coming weeks.
The probe focuses on potential violations of consumer protection laws. The investigation was reportedly active prior to a recent security incident involving the Hugging Face platform, where approximately 700 OpenAI agents were identified as attackers. The AI safety organization METR is also subject to the commission's scrutiny.
The regulatory action follows a recent voluntary commitment made by industry leaders, including Dario Amodei of Anthropic, Greg Brockman of OpenAI, Sundar Pichai of Google, and Elon Musk of xAI. These executives pledged to support independent external audits of their artificial intelligence models during a meeting at the White House.
Ferguson has expressed concerns that large AI firms might attempt to influence regulations to create barriers for smaller competitors. The FTC previously stated in late September that developers would be held accountable for the actions of their AI agents. The current investigation expands upon this stance, potentially creating significant legal risks for the involved laboratories.
