OpenAI's Altman to Brief Trump Administration Ahead of New Model Launch

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is heading to Washington next week to meet with the Trump Administration and U.S. lawmakers to discuss new artificial intelligence models, as the government looks to create a framework for reviewing AI systems.

The discussions are expected to include OpenAI’s upcoming models, the broader implications of advanced AI systems, and how they will affect the way people work, OpenAI’s global public affairs chief, Chris Lehane, said at a briefing in Washington, Bloomberg reported.

"We think that there’s going to be some really interesting capabilities with this model family, particularly as it relates to work and scaling work," Lehane said.

The Trump administration is considering creating a standalone oversight body to evaluate AI systems. One version of the proposal, developed with input from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, aims to give AI companies clearer expectations surrounding how these models would be assessed. 

The idea closely monitors a framework recently proposed by Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, who is set to meet with Washington offices this week to advocate for a similar approach, Bloomberg added.

Lehane noted that if Congress can’t create a national standard for AI governance, the plan would be to create a reverse federalism approach, where states would mirror each other regarding rules and regulations surrounding AI.

OpenAI is backing a proposal in Massachusetts that would require large AI companies to do more to address the potential for severe AI-related risks. The initiative also received support from Anthropic.

Lehane added that the U.S. needs a Coordinated national AI strategy as competition with China intensifies. His comments came after Chinese AI startup Moonshot launched a new model Kimi K3 that challenged deleting US systems from companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic, raising concerns about whether massive AI infrastructure investments will deliver expected returns. 

Lehane argued that a unified approach is needed to maintain US technological leadership, strength and cybersecurity defenses and ensure that AI models can be safely shared with US allies. He pointed to China’s government-backed AI strategy as an example of the coordinated effort that the U.S. may need to compete globally.

Last month, Anthropic had to abruptly disable access to its flagship Fable 5 and Mythos 5 artificial intelligence models after the U.S. government ordered the startup to block foreign nationals from using the systems, citing national security authorities.

The company said authorities did not provide detailed justification for the directive. However, Anthropic said it understands the government’s concerns related to a potential method of "jailbreaking" Fable 5 — a technique used to bypass a model’s built-in safeguards.

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