The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The plaintiffs argue that the alleged agreement could limit competition, reduce the quality and pace of improvements in AI services, and diminish the value received by consumers who pay for platforms such as ChatGPT, Claude, Grok and Gemini.
According to the lawsuit, the alleged coordination became evident on September 12, 2026, after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay calling for cooperation among AI companies to slow technological progress in favour of stronger safety measures.
Following the publication, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, SpaceXAI founder Elon Musk and Google DeepMind chief Demis Hassabis publicly expressed support for Amodei’s proposals. The plaintiffs argue that such coordination among competing companies could restrict the pace of innovation that normal market competition would otherwise produce.
The lawsuit was brought by consumers who subscribe to ChatGPT, Claude, Grok and Gemini. Their lawyers are seeking to represent a wider nationwide group of paying users who may have been affected by the alleged conduct.
Nick Rowley, the lead attorney representing the plaintiffs, warned that AI could soon become difficult for humans to control if safety standards are left to private agreements among powerful technology companies.
“AI will quickly spin out of human control and could kill us all if we allow AI safety and protocol … to be controlled by private self-serving agreements between the world’s most powerful ‘for profit’ technology companies,” Rowley said.
The plaintiffs argue that agreements between competing companies to slow AI development could harm users by preventing technological progress from reaching the level it might achieve under normal competition.
Amodei had acknowledged that cooperation among competing AI companies could raise antitrust concerns. He suggested that the US government could help facilitate such discussions or provide a limited legal exemption for certain safety-related conversations.
Altman has said OpenAI supports the creation of a federal framework establishing consistent AI safety requirements. However, he argued that companies should not have to wait for antitrust exemptions or new legislation before beginning safety-related work.
The case highlights growing tensions between the need to address potential AI risks and concerns that cooperation among major technology companies could undermine competition and consumer interests.
The companies named in the lawsuit had not immediately issued detailed responses to requests for comment at the time of reporting.
