Altman Pitches US-Led Forum to Set AI Standards

Altman pitched a US-led forum to set international AI standards and provide impartial capability and risk analysis, in an FT op-ed surfaced by Fortune on July 2. Whoever runs a body like that sets the reference point regulators and buyers use to judge what a model can actually do.

Fortune frames this as a pivot from competing on benchmarks to competing on who defines them, coming as OpenAI slips against Google and Anthropic. When a lab can't win on the benchmarks themselves, Fortune's read is that it goes after the rulebook instead.

A standards body doesn't care who's ahead on benchmarks, it cares who gets to write the test. Put OpenAI in the room that sets the rulebook and its current benchmark position matters less.

Whether Google and Anthropic engage publicly, or answer with a competing proposal, will show if this idea has any pull outside OpenAI's own op-ed pages.