OpenAI public policy agenda

OpenAI public policy agenda \| OpenAI

June 3, 2026

Global Affairs

OpenAI public policy agenda

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Mission and principles

OpenAI’s mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI) benefits all of humanity. Our work is guided by five core principles⁠ that shape how we build AI and how we engage in public policy:

1. Democratization. We will resist the potential of this technology to consolidate power in the hands of the few. 2. Empowerment. We believe AI can empower everyone to achieve their goals, learn more, be happier and more fulfilled, and pursue their dream, and that society as a whole will benefit from this. 3. Universal prosperity. We want a future where everyone can have an excellent life. 4. Resilience. AI will introduce new risks, and we will work with other companies, ecosystems, governments, and society to solve them. 5. Adaptability. We continue to believe the only way to meet the challenges of a very unpredictable future is to be prepared to update our positions as we learn more.

We believe AI has the potential to reshape how people work, learn, create, and participate in society, and that democracies will play an essential role in helping broaden access to opportunity, mitigate risks, and ensure people have real agency to shape the AI future they want. That’s why we’re committed to making our technology freely and safely accessible.

Our user base reflects that commitment:⁠ we have as many women as men using our tools, more users both under and over age 30 than any other AI platform, and more users earning under $100,000 than over $100,000—mirroring the broader global workforce.

That’s why OpenAI engages with governments and civil society around the world: to help policymakers understand our technology and its impacts, improve how governments function and deliver value to their constituents, expand the ability of people to participate in and benefit from democratic institutions, and shape policies that advance our mission of ensuring that AGI benefits all of humanity.

Our policy priorities

The following priorities reflect how we translate our mission⁠ and our principles⁠ into public policy. We support policies that help governments and society respond to the opportunities and challenges created by AI, mitigate risks, expand access to opportunity, and ensure people can meaningfully participate in and benefit from the AI economy. Together, these priorities are intended to help governments better serve their constituents while advancing our mission of ensuring that AGI benefits all of humanity. They represent some of the areas where we are most actively engaging today, but this list is not exhaustive. As AI evolves, we also expect our policy priorities and areas of engagement to continue to evolve as well.

Safety

Frontier model safety, security, and accountability

We believe frontier AI safety is a national security and public safety issue, particularly for the most advanced general-purpose AI models, which can create risks related to cyber, chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) weapons. In the US, we support state efforts to align around common frameworks such as California SB 53⁠(opens in a new window),the New York RAISE Act⁠(opens in a new window), and Illinois SB 315⁠(opens in a new window) which emphasize transparency, public reporting around catastrophic-risk evaluations and safety incidents, whistleblower protections, and enforceable accountability for developers that fail to meet their safety and security responsibilities. These state-level approaches can help establish harmonized standards that reduce fragmentation and create a path toward an eventual federal framework.

We also support Congressional action to establish a comprehensive federal framework that leverages the emerging consensus reflected in state frontier safety laws; strengthens the Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI) as the US federal government's primary institution for frontier AI safety; and mobilizes a broader resilience plan across government to address the national security and public safety challenges posed by frontier AI. This framework should require CAISI to conduct evaluations of the most capable frontier models, direct CAISI to create an independent assessment ecosystem, and prioritize monitoring progress towards recursive self improvement (RSI). With a comprehensive federal framework in place, we support the preemption of state laws that seek to regulate the same frontier safety risks.

We also support the US federal government playing a leading role setting common international standards, and were the first US company to sign the EU AI Act Code of Practice. We were also among the first companies to enter into voluntary agreements with both the US CAISI and the UK AI Security Institute (UK AISI).

Looking to the future, we believe policymaker focus should begin considering more ambitious ideas⁠(opens in a new window) such as model containment playbooks, incident reporting, or international governance bodies that facilitate coordination around frontier AI risks, safeguards, and security incidents.

On cybersecurity⁠(opens in a new window) in particular, we support policies that expand trusted access to AI-powered cyber defense tools and stronger partnerships among governments, researchers, and industry to conduct evaluations, deepen information-sharing, and build resilience measures to strengthen cyber defense. We also support efforts to modernize outdated public-sector cybersecurity systems and are partnering with the U.S. government at the federal, state, and local levels, and with international partners as well.

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