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Google, OpenAI and Anthropic Plan Industry-Run Standards Authority for Frontier AI, Modeled on FINRA

Google, OpenAI and Anthropic reportedly plan a self-regulatory body for frontier AI covering pre-release testing, incident reporting and auditor certification, targeting a launch by year-end or early 2027.

Policy & Regulation AI Regulation
ai-policy ai-safety self-regulation anthropic openai google
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Editor's Note ·

Clarification:
The headline states that Google, OpenAI and Anthropic 'Plan' an industry-run standards authority as established fact. The plan comes from a report by The Information, based on unnamed sources, relayed by The Next Web (which says it has not independently verified it) and PYMNTS. The companies have not announced or confirmed the body; the launch timeline is described only as a hope.

Overview

Google, OpenAI and Anthropic plan to set up their own AI safety standards body without government oversight, according to The Next Web, which relayed a report from The Information and noted that it has not independently verified that report. The three companies hope to launch the body by the end of the year or early in 2027, per the same outlet.

What We Know

  • Name and model. The companies tentatively plan to call it the Standards Authority for Frontier AI, and The Next Web reports they based the plan on FINRA, the self-regulatory organisation for US brokerage firms.
  • Scope of work. Reports that followed The Information’s story say the body would set standards for testing models before release, for reporting safety incidents and for certifying outside auditors, according to The Next Web. PYMNTS adds that it would support third-party organizations that test models before they are deployed, detail how AI developers should report safety and security incidents, define the labs’ voluntary safety and security commitments, and establish qualifications for independent auditors of models and labs.
  • Possible in-house testing. Members of a working group are also considering having the group itself test models’ safety and capabilities, PYMNTS reports, citing the original report.
  • Why it is industry-run. The labs first wanted a body with federal oversight, but that plan stalled when a draft White House executive order failed to win enough support inside the Trump administration, according to The Next Web.
  • Membership. The body would cover only the three frontier labs at the start, and the reports do not name Microsoft, Meta or xAI as members, per The Next Web.

Context: The White House Accord

Fortune reports that news of the standards body broke following President Donald Trump’s recent voluntary pact with AI company leaders. The one-page document, which Trump posted to Truth Social and described as “morally binding,” was signed by Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, OpenAI’s Greg Brockman, Google’s Sundar Pichai, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, xAI’s Elon Musk and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, according to Fortune. The Machine Herald covered the accord when it was signed.

Under the Joint Commitment on Frontier Responsibilities, the companies pledged to build “robust” internal controls and to ensure systems “do not hack or access technical systems in unintended ways,” and also agreed to bring in independent external auditors, set up board-level oversight committees and meet regularly to hammer out shared safety standards, per Fortune. Fortune adds that there was reporting the previous month that OpenAI and Anthropic were trying to create shared safety standards, but that effort was later stalled.

The accord’s commitments on auditors and shared standards overlap with the functions described for the proposed authority, though none of the cited reports states that the body would implement the accord.

Criticism and Overlap

Critics of the plan are concerned that Anthropic, Google and OpenAI could use the new organization to box out open-source model developers and other competitors, PYMNTS reports, citing the original report. The outlet also notes that the companies created a nonprofit with many of the same goals in 2023, that it remains active, and that the two organizations are in contact and could work together.

According to Fortune, the effort cannot look much like regulation, both to avoid accusations of regulatory capture and to avoid contradicting the Trump administration.

Regulatory Pressure Continues

The administration has said existing laws still apply. Fortune reports that the FTC already has the power to go after companies whose products harm consumers or mislead people about safety, and that its probe is looking closely at AI agents after a run of incidents that included the Hugging Face hack. The Machine Herald previously reported on that probe.

What We Don’t Know

  • Whether the body will be formally launched, and when; the timeline is stated as a hope, and The Next Web has not independently verified the underlying report.
  • What enforcement powers the authority would have. The Next Web says they have not been set out.
  • Whether Microsoft, Meta, xAI or open-source developers would be able to join or would be bound by its standards.
  • How its testing and incident-reporting standards would apply to AI coding agents and developer tooling, which none of the cited reports address.