OpenAI, Anthropic and Google float an AI standards body

CNN Business (Hadas Gold, 14 September 2026) reported that Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI have discussed creating an AI industry standards body, according to people familiar with the situation. The Information first reported the conversations.

This is people-familiar reporting of private industry talks. It is not a launched regulator, not a law, not a signed compact, and not a company press release. Representatives for Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic declined to comment or did not respond to CNN.

CNN says the talks preceded the past week's resignation drama and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's public pacing essay. The catalyst, according to those familiar with the situation, was a July essay by Google DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis. He proposed a US-led standards body modeled on the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), with public-private oversight, industry funding, and independent technical experts testing advanced models before deployment.

The conversations are ongoing, one person told CNN, with or without the Trump administration. Bloomberg had reported Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was considering a FINRA-like AI agency that would report to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly advised President Trump against the idea in a summer phone call, Politico reported, via CNN.

OpenAI chief scientist Jakub Pachocki told reporters the lab has been talking "to some external organizations about potential concrete standards" and would have more "in the next months." Sam Altman said late Sunday they look forward to collaborating across the industry on the best version of industry standards.

House Speaker Mike Johnson told CNN there is little consensus among the competing companies on what the guardrails should be. The White House still has an opaque voluntary pre-release review window of up to 30 days. Eligibility and process are not publicized.

Related vendor and agent tape includes Microsoft's humanist AI code of conduct, Anthropic's enterprise frontier safeguards, and the OpenAI agents German wiki episode.

If you buy frontier API access, treat the talks as an early signal that shared third-party eval windows may show up in vendor paperwork, not as a regime you can map to a contract this week.