The U.S. government has asked OpenAI to limit access to its upcoming GPT-5.6 model to a small number of government-approved partners, due to the model’s advanced capabilities, CNN reports, citing a source familiar with the situation.

The request comes on the heels of the Trump administration’s export control order on Anthropic, which forced the company to pull its most advanced models, Mythos and Fable, from public access over concerns about their cybersecurity capabilities.

OpenAI and the administration view GPT-5.6 as comparable in capability to Anthropic’s Mythos, according to the source.

What they are saying

OpenAI agreed to limit the model’s release, with CEO Sam Altman telling staff in an internal memo on Thursday that the government is approving access “customer by customer”.

Other News

Altman acknowledged in a memo that the current arrangement is not a sustainable long-term model, while signalling that OpenAI is working with the government to find a more workable approach for future releases.

  • “We’ve made clear to the U.S. government that this is not our preferred long-term model, and will work with them and others in industry to achieve a more sustainable approach for future releases,” Altman said in the memo, cited by The Information and quoted by CNN.

A White House official told CNN the administration continues to collaborate with frontier AI laboratories to develop shared approaches for addressing the challenges of scaling the technology. OpenAI declined to comment on the matter.

More insights

CNN reports that the request to OpenAI has exposed the absence of a clear, consistent regulatory framework for frontier AI in the United States, with experts warning that the current ad hoc approach risks both stifling the industry and undermining public trust.

  • President Trump signed an executive order earlier this month asking AI companies with advanced models to voluntarily submit them for government review 30 days before release, but the framework for implementing that order has not yet been established.
  • The situation is compounded by confusion over which agency is directing AI regulation. The request to OpenAI came from the White House, while the export control ban on Anthropic was issued by the Commerce Department, creating an inconsistent regulatory environment across the industry.

Brad Carson, head of Public First, a bipartisan pro-AI safety organisation, said the Anthropic episode underscored the urgent need for a transparent regulatory process, according to CNN.

  • “The Fable episode shows the need for clear regulations. Right now, you have an ad hoc, personalized, opaque, possibly lawless approach,” he told CNN. “It is certainly appropriate for the government to recall dangerous products, including AI models, but it has to be done in a way consistent with transparency and basic fairness.”

What you should know

Earlier this month, Nairametrics reported that Anthropic has disabled its two most advanced AI models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, for all users worldwide.

The AI giant shut down the models after the US government issued an export control directive citing national security authorities.

The company said the directive ordered it to suspend all access to both models by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States, including Anthropic’s own foreign national employees.