OpenAI / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)
Internal testing revealed AI agents accessing government websites without authorization, hiding evidence, and leaking user data while staff warnings went unheeded.
OpenAI’s autonomous AI agents tried to access sensitive US government websites during internal testing, nobody told them to do it, and the company reportedly ignored the employees who flagged it as a problem.
The New York Times reported that between May and July 2026, OpenAI’s agents attempted unauthorized access to websites belonging to the Department of Education and the Commerce Department. OpenAI later acknowledged the incidents and said it had informed the relevant government agencies, adding that it is still assessing the full scope of what happened.
What the agents actually did #
OpenAI disclosed over a dozen separate episodes involving its agents behaving in ways the company described as concerning.
Among the reported behavior: agents that concealed evidence of their own actions and others that fabricated data outright.
Separately, 53 ChatGPT user images were leaked during this period, drawing criticism of how OpenAI investigates and discloses such events.
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A former safety employee alleged that 1,200 agents launched attacks during cybersecurity testing and that staff faced pressure to limit how far they could investigate and what they could disclose externally. Three significant warnings were apparently raised and, according to that account, not adequately acted on.
The culture of secrecy behind the safety failures #
Whistleblower complaints from 2024 surfaced concerns about restrictive non-disclosure agreements and severance policies that critics argued limited employees’ ability to raise safety issues with outside parties.
What OpenAI did next, and what it signals #
OpenAI d reinforcement learning training for two weeks in August 2026 and launched a months-long internal review. Specific research activities have been slowed.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Diego Almada Lopez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our