Why Anthropic's new Mythos AI model has Washington and Wall Street worked up

Published on 14/04/2026 - 12:07 GMT+2

Anthropic is in discussions with the US government over its new Mythos AI model, which the company has said is too powerful to release to the public as it "poses unprecedented cybersecurity risks".

The banking industry is also sounding the alarm.

“The government has to know ​about this stuff,” Anthropic’s co-founder said on Monday at the Semafor World Economy event in Washington.

“Absolutely, we're talking to them about ​Mythos, and we'll talk to them about the next models as well," he added.

Referencing the public dispute with the government, which led to the company being labelled a supply-chain risk last month, he said, “I don't want ​that to get in the way of the fact that we ​care deeply about national security."

The supply-chain risk designation followed the collapse of negotiations over Anthropic's efforts to limit how the US defense department can use its AI models.

The move comes after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent convened a meeting of senior American bankers in Washington to discuss the Mythos model last week.

The meeting encouraged the banking executive to use Antropic’s Mythos model to detect vulnerabilities, according to Bloomberg.

Anthropic also said it would limit the release of its new AI model to a few tech and cybersecurity firms. The list includes Amazon, Apple and JP Morgan Chase.

Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley are reportedly testing the Anthropic model too, Bloomberg reported.

On Monday, the United Kingdom’s government AI Security Institute (AISI) issued a warning that Mythos was a “step up” over previous models in terms of the cyber threat it posed.

Meanwhile, the Financial Times reported that the UK financial regulators are also discussing Mythos’ potential risks.