Google, OpenAI and Anthropic Face Lawsuit Over Alleged AI Slowdown

Google, OpenAI and Anthropic, along with SpaceXAI, are facing a proposed federal class-action lawsuit in the United States over allegations that the companies coordinated efforts to slow the pace of artificial-intelligence development. The lawsuit was filed on September 18, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California by four paying users of AI services including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Grok. The plaintiffs claim that the companies’ cooperation on AI safety amounted to an agreement that reduced the pace of improvements available to consumers.

The dispute follows a September 12 essay by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who called for leading AI companies to coordinate on measures designed to slow the development of increasingly powerful frontier systems. Amodei argued that additional coordination and independent safety evaluations could give companies more time to address cybersecurity and other risks associated with advanced AI. Leaders at other companies, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, expressed support for aspects of the proposal.

OpenAI had already confirmed that it had been working with Anthropic and Google DeepMind on AI safety issues for several weeks. OpenAI policy chief Chris Lehane said the discussions focused on safety measures and did not require an antitrust waiver in the company’s view. The companies have also discussed creating an industry standards organisation that could establish common approaches to testing and evaluating powerful AI systems before or after deployment.

The lawsuit argues that cooperation between competing AI companies could have an impact on consumers who pay for their services. According to the complaint, the companies’ public support for slowing frontier AI development represented more than independent safety decisions and amounted to coordinated conduct that allegedly restrained competition. These are allegations contained in the lawsuit, however, and the filing itself does not establish that the companies violated antitrust law. The defendants had not yet filed substantive responses to the complaint at the time of the latest reports.

The case comes as the AI industry faces growing debate over how rapidly increasingly capable systems should be developed and how their risks should be managed. AI companies are simultaneously competing to release more capable models while discussing common safety standards, independent testing and safeguards. The lawsuit could therefore bring greater legal attention to the boundary between legitimate cooperation on AI safety and coordination that could potentially raise competition concerns.