OpenAI and Anthropic urge Australia to relax ban on training AI models on creative content

What happened

OpenAI and Anthropic made submissions to Australia's Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence in September 2026, urging the government to rethink its ban on training AI models on the country's creative content. Reuters reported the submissions on September 22, 2026.

Details

• Australia has ruled out a copyright exemption for AI training, which the article says effectively prevents the mostly US-domiciled companies from training there, and will implement a broad set of rules on AI and data centres from next year.
• Anthropic's submission accepted that broad copyright exceptions "have not received widespread support" and proposed instead a "narrow form of conditional approval" — permitting AI model training if Australia required "investment or other conditions designed to support the future of Australian creators and cultural endeavours," which it said it was open to considering.
• OpenAI called for "a balanced copyright framework that allows models to learn from publicly available information" while offering rightsholders opportunities to collaborate.
• Both companies tied the issue to infrastructure investments: OpenAI signed an offtake agreement with data centre developer NextDC for a planned Sydney data centre, and Anthropic was named as a partner for a data centre in Queensland.
• The Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence is due to deliver its report in November 2026.

Boundary

These are company submissions to a parliamentary inquiry and a press report of them, not enacted policy. The inquiry's report is pending.