Chris Lehane, who oversees global policy at OpenAI, confirmed to reporters on Tuesday that his company has spent several weeks collaborating with competitors Anthropic and Google DeepMind on matters of AI safety, a story initially broken by Bloomberg. Lehane is said to be in Washington to engage with U.S. lawmakers on the subject of catastrophic AI risks.

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The disclosure follows an essay published Saturday by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, in which he urged the industry to collectively slow the development of frontier AI and steer clear of catastrophic outcomes. Several prominent AI figures backed Amodei's letter and his call to action, among them OpenAI's Sam Altman, Google's Demis Hassabis, and SpaceXAI's Elon Musk. Altman stated that OpenAI would follow Anthropic's lead by bringing in third-party evaluators to monitor safety within the company.

On Tuesday, Lehane acknowledged that the three firms had been engaged in discussions about AI safety for several weeks. Some observers, Altman included, have pointed out that such coordination could expose the companies to antitrust violations if it were determined to be suppressing competition. Amodei's essay floated the idea of a limited government waiver to permit this kind of safety coordination, though Lehane reportedly indicated the companies don't require one.

The news validates earlier reporting and suggests the companies were already cooperating. In an interview with Fortune late last week, Altman gave hints that he had been holding private conversations with other AI leaders. This week, The Information reported that the three companies have been collaborating on the creation of a standards body for the AI industry — something Altman reportedly told staff would have to come together without backing from the U.S. government.

Back in July, Hassabis urged the U.S. to create a new standards body that would function as an AI watchdog, armed with the authority to review the world's most advanced models and orchestrate industry-wide slowdowns if dangers escalated. President Trump, for his part, has brushed off safety concerns as a hoax and resisted calls for stricter regulations, arguing that any slowdown would hand China an advantage in the race. His key AI advisor David Sacks — a longtime investor with personal stakes across much of the industry — repeated this position, saying fears of existential risk from AI were exaggerated.

At the same Tuesday meeting, Lehane said OpenAI backs a provision in the FRONTIER Act that would require top frontier labs to admit "independent verification organizations" into their companies to confirm models are being developed safely.