NEW YORK: US artificial intelligence lab Anthropic scored the highest in a semiannual safety ranking, but globally the industry fails to combat “existential” threats, according to a report released on Tuesday. Meta moved up two spots to fourth place, while xAI dropped three spots to seventh place, just ahead of China’s DeepSeek and France’s Mistral, which placed last, according to US-based AI safety think tank Future of Life Institute, which ranked nine of the world’s leading AI companies.

The voluntary safety system created by AI labs has begun eroding as capabilities grow.

The industry's best-performing AI companies still earned mediocre marks—and experts say competition alone isn't making them safer.