The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has stepped up its investigation of AI companies. According to an agency spokesperson, who confirmed the report to Axios and The Hill, the FTC sent demands to Anthropic executives to testify in an investigation into possible harm to consumers. The demands were sent on Monday, the same day Anthropic unveiled its prospectus for a Nasdaq listing.
What is known about the probe
The testimony demands come about two weeks after the FTC sent document demands to Anthropic and OpenAI. According to reports, those demands run to about 50 pages for each company and request documents on security incidents, the companies' safeguards, marketing materials and their privacy policies.
The FTC did not confirm whether OpenAI executives received a similar demand to testify. According to reports, the spokesperson said individuals at other AI companies had also received demands to testify, without saying which companies. The agency has previously said more demands will be sent to other organizations later.
Awkward timing
The timing is especially sensitive for Anthropic. The company, which develops the Claude models, filed its prospectus with the US Securities and Exchange Commission ahead of a Nasdaq listing, and that document already addresses the investigation. According to reports, Anthropic warned in the prospectus that the FTC probe could lead to significant costs and require changes to the design of its models. For potential investors, an open federal investigation is a risk factor that is hard to ignore.
Part of a wider trend
The probe reflects growing pressure on AI companies in the US, after a series of incidents in which chatbots and autonomous systems caused harm or behaved unexpectedly. Until now, regulation of the field in the US has been relatively limited, and the FTC is one of the few bodies actually acting, through its authority to protect consumers from deceptive or harmful practices.
What it means
A demand to testify is not an accusation, and it does not mean the agency has found a violation. But the move from documents to executive testimony shows the investigation is advancing. For Anthropic, which presents itself as a company that puts safety at the center, it is a reputational and business test at exactly the moment it is asking the public to invest in it. Anthropic has not published a specific response to the demands.
