WASHINGTON — The Federal Trade Commission is intensifying a broad investigation into Anthropic, OpenAI and other leading artificial intelligence laboratories as it examines potential risks their technology could pose to consumers. Administration officials told The Post that the agency plans to issue formal demands, similar to subpoenas, requiring the companies to provide information.
FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson began the inquiry before an AI model malfunctioned during a test in what has since been dubbed the “Hugging Face incident.” The agency is now preparing civil investigative demands that could compel executives at the major AI firms to testify.
“Chairman Ferguson initiated an investigation into the leading AI firms a few weeks ago,” a senior FTC official told The Post.
The official said the agency intends to require executives to testify about their products and “the dangers they allege their products may have to consumers, to Americans.”
The FTC investigation is focused on allegations that the companies may have engaged in unfair or deceptive practices in violation of the FTC Act. Investigators are expected to seek records from AI and so-called superintelligence firms, a term President Trump has used to describe the companies.
“We need to win this SI race absolutely, and we are winning, and that’s fantastic,” the FTC official said. “And obviously, the other side, the Democrat Party, wants to destroy this technology, wants to surrender to our enemies or competitors — and that’s not something that the chairman’s interested in doing and that’s really not something the president’s interested in doing.”
“But with that being said, the laws have to be followed,” the official added. “People talk about how we need new laws for these companies, and the chairman’s been very clear … we have plenty of laws in the books.”
President Trump said in a Fox News interview last weekend that suspected violations would be quickly referred to the Justice Department. His comments could leave AI companies facing potential liability for hacks carried out by rogue AI agents, including attacks that threaten energy networks or financial institutions.
Several top AI executives — including Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and xAI’s Elon Musk — visited the White House Tuesday to sign an agreement with Trump pledging to self-regulate their AI models.
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Ferguson, who has repeatedly argued that AI companies may be accountable for actions taken by their autonomous agents, also attended the event.
The FTC is expected to issue its civil investigative demands, known as CIDs, in the coming weeks, according to the official. The agency’s Office of Technology is also preparing to hire staff for the investigation after several employees brought in under former Chair Lina Khan were dismissed.
METR, a Berkeley, California-based AI watchdog associated with the effective altruism movement, is also expected to come under scrutiny in the investigation.
The inquiry follows earlier requests for records from OpenAI and other companies concerning the effects of AI chatbots on children’s mental health, according to a Wall Street Journal report earlier this month.
For years, AI executives and effective altruists have warned publicly that the technology could pose serious risks to humanity without government action. In recent weeks, however, they have stepped up calls for the Trump administration to intervene.
“I think it’s very important that we not allow these two firms to come to Washington, whip everyone into a panic and then say, ‘We need a whole bunch of regulations that we can comply with,’” Ferguson said on Fox News on Sept. 20. “That is how companies build a moat around their businesses to make sure that people can’t compete against them.”
“And competition is what is going to make sure that America wins the AI race against China,” he added.
OpenAI disclosed in July what it described as an unprecedented incident involving the Hugging Face open-source development platform, where more than 1,000 of its AI agents carried out hacks.
“We want to maintain our dominance,” the senior FTC official said. “Nothing in our investigation should remotely get in the way of that at all. We’re not telling them to stop. We’re not telling them to do anything. We are in the investigative phase.”
Representatives for Anthropic and OpenAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
