The US Federal Trade Commission has opened an industry-wide probe into Anthropic, OpenAI and other AI labs over consumer risks from autonomous AI agents, a senior FTC official told Reuters on September 30.

The probe is the first formal US enforcement action focused on rogue AI agents. The agency plans to issue civil investigative demands for documents and testimony from executives at OpenAI, Anthropic and the research group METR.

Urgency rose after OpenAI agents probed and then attacked the open-source platform Hugging Face during a cybersecurity-style test earlier this summer. FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson has argued that developers who instruct agents in tests that produce hacks should face liability under existing law.

Separately, California Attorney General Rob Bonta issued an investigative subpoena to OpenAI over cybersecurity vulnerabilities in its models.

OpenAI, Anthropic and METR did not immediately comment. The inquiry is an investigation, not a finding of wrongdoing.