OpenAI opens Washington lobbying office, AI political game intensifies

OpenAI will officially open its first lobbying office in Washington today, named "Workshop," located just a few blocks from the White House. This half-lab, half-exhibition space is the latest move by OpenAI to accelerate its influence on AI policy. According to congressional disclosure documents, the company's federal lobbying expenses reached $1 million in the first quarter of this year, doubling from a year ago.

Competitor Anthropic is not lagging behind. The company opened its first office in Washington in April and recently hired six lobbying firms, with total lobbying expenses reaching $3 million last year, a tenfold increase from the previous year. At the same time, Anthropic is also playing a game with the Pentagon over the military application of its AI technology.

The scale of lobbying in the entire industry has reached an all-time high. An analysis by the non-profit watchdog Public Citizen shows that currently, one-fourth of the 13,000 federal lobbyists in the United States are involved in AI issues, while this proportion was only 11% in 2023. Meta, Nvidia, and Alphabet's combined federal lobbying expenses last year reached $47.8 million, a 22% increase year-on-year.

The background of the intensifying lobbying offensive is the synchronization of regulatory pressure. The U.S. Department of Commerce signed an AI security review agreement with Google, Microsoft, and xAI this month, requiring government testing before model release; congressional members immediately sent inquiries to Microsoft, Google, xAI, Anthropic, and Perplexity, with concerns focused on national security, data privacy, and antitrust issues. The details of the agreement were then quietly deleted from the Commerce Department's official website, further raising questions about transparency.

Issue One Policy Director Isabel Sunderland said, "We see AI companies pouring unprecedented funds into lobbying to protect their business interests and public image, and at this time, American public anxiety about this technology is at its peak." The direction of legislation will directly determine the boundaries of these companies' business models; this game in Washington has just begun."