Numerous Big Tech companies—including OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft—have joined forces to create a new industry group aimed at enhancing security in artificial intelligence amid the technology’s rapid growth.

Announced at the Aspen Security Forum in Aspen, Colorado, the Coalition for Secure AI (CoSAI) is an open-source initiative created to share open-source methodologies, standardised frameworks, and tools, helping developers to create secure-by-design AI systems.

Its founding members include prominent tech companies such as Anthropic, Amazon, Cisco, IBM, Intel, Nvidia, PayPal, as well as aforementioned organisations OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft—among others.

The project aims to increase trust and security in AI use and deployment, with its scope including building, integrating, deploying, and operating secure AI systems, focusing on mitigating risks like model theft, data poisoning, prompt injection, scaled abuse, and inference attacks.

The group’s initial work is set to begin by forming three workstreams, initially looking at: software supply chain security for AI systems; preparing defenders for a changing cybersecurity landscape; and AI security governance.

The new coalition is hosted by global standards body OASIS Open, the nonprofit working on open source and open standards projects in areas like cybersecurity, blockchain, and cloud computing.

The coalition’s launch comes during a pivotal moment, with the act of securing AI and AI applications and services currently being a somewhat fragmented endeavour, as developers grapple with a patchwork of guidelines and standards which can be inconsistent and siloed.

Speaking on the new industry group, David LaBianca, Google, CoSAI governing board co-chair, said: “CoSAI’s establishment was rooted in the necessity of democratizing the knowledge and advancements essential for the secure integration and deployment of AI.”

“With the help of OASIS Open, we’re looking forward to continuing this work and collaboration among leading companies, experts, and academia.”

Meanwhile, Nick Hamilton, head of governance, risk, and compliance, OpenAI, commented: “Developing and deploying AI technologies that are secure and trustworthy is central to OpenAI’s mission.

“We believe that developing robust standards and practices is essential for ensuring the safe and responsible use of AI and we’re committed to collaborating across the industry to do so.

“Through our participation in CoSAI, we aim to contribute our expertise and resources to help create a secure AI ecosystem that benefits everyone.”

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Jason Clinton, chief information security officer, Anthropic, further added: “As a safety-focused organization, building and deploying secure AI models has been core to our mission from the start.

“We’re proud to partner with other industry leaders to help foster a secure AI ecosystem and collaborate on a set of technical security best practices and standards.

“We look forward to the work ahead with the coalition to encourage safe AI development.”

OASIS highlighted that everybody is welcome to contribute technically as part of the CoSAI open-source community.