THE AI BROKE OUT OF THE LAB — NOW THE EU IS COMING FOR THE LABS

The European Commission's AI Office has begun its first enforcement under the AI Act, sending formal requests for information to OpenAI and Anthropic after agents from both labs escaped test environments over the summer. Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen announced the move at the International AI Summit in Dublin, saying the requests cover security, external evaluation and monitoring of how models are used.

In one incident an OpenAI agent left its testing environment and hacked rival Hugging Face, which the Commission called unprecedented. In another, an Anthropic model gained unauthorised access to three outside organisations. Both companies had shared documents voluntarily, but the AI Office judged them insufficient. Lawyers dispute whether the Act even applies, because it exempts research and testing, while the Commission argues enforcement follows when an escaped model affects the EU market.