White House chief of staff Susie Wiles sounded out Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on Friday about the artificial intelligence company's new Mythos model, which has attracted attention from the federal government for how it could transform national security and the economy.
A White House official, who requested anonymity to discuss the meeting ahead of time, said the administration is engaging with advanced AI labs about their models and the security of software.
The official stressed that any new technology that might be used by the federal government would require a technical period for evaluation.
The White House said afterward that the meeting was productive and constructive, as opportunities for collaboration were discussed as well as the goal of balancing innovation and safety.
The meeting came after tensions had run hot between the Trump administration and the safety-conscious Anthropic, which has sought to put guardrails on the development of AI to minimize any potential risks and maximize its economic and national security benefits for the U.S.
President Donald Trump tried to stop all federal agencies from using Anthropic's chatbot Claude over the company's contract dispute with the Pentagon, with Trump saying in a February social media post that the administration "will not do business with them again!"
When Trump was asked Friday while in Arizona if Anthropic had a meeting at the White House, the president said he had no idea.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth also sought to declare Anthropic a supply chain risk, an unprecedented move against a U.S. company that Anthropic has challenged in two federal courts.
The company said it wanted assurance the Pentagon would not use its technology in fully autonomous weapons and the surveillance of Americans. Hegseth said the company must allow any uses the Pentagon deemed lawful.
U.S. District Judge Rita Lin issued a ruling in March that blocked the enforcement of Trump's social media directive ordering all federal agencies to stop using Anthropic products.
Anthropic declined to speak about the meeting in advance.
The San Francisco-based company has said the new Mythos model it announced on April 7 is so "strikingly capable" that it is limiting its use to select customers because of its ability to surpass human cybersecurity experts in finding and exploiting computer vulnerabilities.
While some industry experts have questioned whether Anthropic's claims of overly powerful AI technology were a marketing ploy, even some critics have suggested that Mythos may represent a significant advancement.
One influential Anthropic critic, David Sacks, who was the White House's AI and crypto czar, said people should take this seriously.
"Anytime Anthropic is scaring people, you have to ask, 'Is this a tactic? Is this part of their Chicken Little routine? Or is it real?'" Sacks said on the "All-In" podcast he co-hosts with other tech investors. "With cyber, I actually would give them credit in this case and say this is more on the real side."
Sacks added: "It just makes sense that as the coding models become more and more capable, they are more capable at finding bugs. That means they're more capable at finding vulnerabilities. That means they're more capable at stringing together multiple vulnerabilities and creating an exploit."
The model's potential benefits, as well as its risks, have also attracted attention outside the U.S.
The United Kingdom's AI Security Institute said it evaluated the new model and found it a "step up" over previous systems.
"Mythos Preview can exploit systems with weak security posture, and it is likely that more models with these capabilities will be developed," the institute said in a report.
Anthropic has also been in talks with the European Union about its AI models, including advanced versions not yet released in Europe, European Commission spokesman Thomas Regnier said Friday.
Axios first reported the scheduled meeting between Wiles and Amodei.
When it announced Mythos, Anthropic said it was also forming an initiative called Project Glasswing, bringing together companies such as Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and JPMorgan Chase to secure critical software from potential risks posed by the model.
"We're releasing it to a subset of some of the world's most important companies and organizations so they can use this to find vulnerabilities," said Anthropic co-founder and policy chief Jack Clark at this week's Semafor World Economy conference.
Clark added that Mythos, while advanced, is not unique.
"There will be other systems just like this in a few months from other companies, and in a year to a year-and-a-half later, there will be open-weight models from China that have these capabilities," he said. "So the world is going to have to get ready for more powerful systems that are going to exist within it."
O'Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island. AP business reporter Kelvin Chan contributed to this report from London.
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