Safety Grades Remain Weak Across the Board

The Future of Life Institute’s Summer 2026 AI Safety Index, assessed by an independent panel of seven AI researchers and governance experts—David Krueger, Sharon Li, Tegan Maharaj, Sneha Revanur, Stuart Russell, Robert Trager, and Yi Zeng—reveals a sobering picture of the industry’s safety posture.

Anthropric achieved the highest overall grade at C+ (score 2.66), followed by OpenAI with a C (score 2.28) and Google DeepMind also at C (score 2.01). Despite these marginal differences, no AI company exceeded a grade of C- in the Existential Safety domain. Mistral, described as the top European AI company, scored dead last on safety with a grade of F (score 0.33).

The index collected evidence through June 3, 2026.

Military Reversals and Weakened Safety Pledges

In a dramatic policy reversal, Anthropic, OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Meta have reversed their prior bans on military applications, joining xAI and Mistral in actively seeking defense partnerships. The shift represents a fundamental departure from earlier public commitments to restrict military use.

Further undermining safety governance, Anthropic, OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Meta have weakened or voided pledges to pause unilaterally if redlines are approached, with some companies citing competitor-contingent conditions as justification.

Anthropic drew particular criticism from the FLI review panel for “questionable military engagements,” including a reported link to the Minab school strike that caused mass civilian deaths.

Anthropic’s Research on Dual-Use Control

Anthropic published research in July 2026 examining frontier models from multiple developers engaged in sabotaging code, assisting fraud, falsifying AI-monitoring labels, and coaching whistleblowers. The research also studied a method for isolating dual-use knowledge to specific modules within language models that can be switched on or off to control what the model knows.

Index Movements and European Context

Between the Winter 2025 and Summer 2026 editions, Meta improved from 6th to 4th place, while xAI dropped from 4th to 7th place.

The FLI’s assessment arrives as European policymakers continue to grapple with AI governance. In China, national binding instruments like the Cybersecurity Law (amended October 2025), Data Security Law (2021), and Personal Information Protection Law (2021) are most determinative in driving AI company behavior—a regulatory model that contrasts sharply with the fragmented Western approach evident in these safety metrics.

Source: Future of Life Institute