Exclusive: OpenAI briefs feds and Five Eyes on new cyber product

OpenAI has been briefing federal agencies, state governments and Five Eyes allies on the capabilities of its new cyber product over the past week, Axios has learned.

Why it matters: Companies and agencies are clamoring to get their hands on the latest AI tools, whose advanced cybersecurity capabilities promise big gains for defenders and frightening advances for malicious hackers.

Driving the news: OpenAI held an event in D.C. on Tuesday for approximately 50 cyber defense practitioners across the federal government to demo the capabilities of its new GPT-5.4-Cyber model, which it rolled out under a tiered access program last week.

• Government applicants are going through the same vetting process as commercial customers who wish to join its Trusted Access for Cyber program, a source familiar said.
• Attendees included a range of officials from across the government and national security agencies, most of whom oversee day-to-day cyber tasks.

Split screen: OpenAI rolled out its new cyber model hot on the heels of Anthropic's Mythos Preview, and both companies are currently working with government agencies to determine who will have access.

• Anthropic withheld a public release of Mythos, citing its cyber risks, and offered it only to around 40 companies and organizations, including at least two in the federal government.
• OpenAI is pursuing a dual-track approach of making one version of its model more widely available with strong safeguards in place, while releasing another more cyber-permissive version to defenders through the Trusted Access program.

Zoom in: At Tuesday's event, OpenAI Chief Global Affairs Officer Chris Lehane said that approach would allow more companies, like local water utilities, to access advanced AI tools.

• Sasha Baker, OpenAI's head of national security policy, told attendees that OpenAI hopes to partner with government departments to prioritize the most crucial use cases and build channels to share threat intelligence across sectors.
• The company is also working with state governments to get them access to GPT-5.4-Cyber.

The intrigue: OpenAI is starting briefings with Five Eyes members this week to get them vetted and signed up to access the model, Axios has learned.

• In addition to the U.S., that intelligence-sharing partnership includes Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the U.K.

Anthropic's own rollout within the U.S. government is complicated by the Pentagon's decision to label the company as a "supply chain risk" after a messy AI safeguards fight.

• Still, Mythos is currently being tested by the NSA despite the designation, as Axios reported.

Between the lines: Most companies that already have access to OpenAI's model and Anthropic's Mythos Preview are using the tools to find exploitable security flaws in their own internal systems.

• Many government agencies are bogged down by legacy systems that are difficult to keep secure and patch. Advanced AI tools could help them speed up the discovery of severe flaws.