# AI Labs Get Failing Grades on Safety: Anthropic Tops at C+

> The Future of Life Institute's 2026 AI Safety Index landed with an unflattering verdict: not one frontier lab earned an A or a B. Anthropic came out on top, and even it only managed a C plus, described by the graders as a mediocre showing against the labs' own stated standards. OpenAI and Google DeepMind sat at C, Meta at D plus, and xAI, DeepSeek, and Mistral drew failing marks. What makes the report sting is the direction of travel. The index tracks risk assessment, current harms, safety frameworks, existential safety, governance, and transparency, and across the board it finds companies quietly walking back commitments they made a couple of years ago. Firms that swore off military work in 2023 are now courting defense contracts in 2026. The timing matters because these same systems are being wired into cybersecurity tooling, healthcare, and autonomous agents. A C plus from the best-behaved lab is a reminder that capability is racing ahead of the guardrails, and the people building the scorecards want that gap on the record.

_Section: [Daily AI Updates](https://www.wortins.com/daily-ai) · Source: futureoflife.org · Published Thursday, July 16, 2026_

## Wortins' read

The Future of Life Institute's 2026 AI Safety Index landed with an unflattering verdict: not one frontier lab earned an A or a B. Anthropic came out on top, and even it only managed a C plus, described by the graders as a mediocre showing against the labs' own stated standards. OpenAI and Google DeepMind sat at C, Meta at D plus, and xAI, DeepSeek, and Mistral drew failing marks. What makes the report sting is the direction of travel. The index tracks risk assessment, current harms, safety frameworks, existential safety, governance, and transparency, and across the board it finds companies quietly walking back commitments they made a couple of years ago. Firms that swore off military work in 2023 are now courting defense contracts in 2026. The timing matters because these same systems are being wired into cybersecurity tooling, healthcare, and autonomous agents. A C plus from the best-behaved lab is a reminder that capability is racing ahead of the guardrails, and the people building the scorecards want that gap on the record.

## Source

[Read the full story at futureoflife.org](https://futureoflife.org/ai-safety-index-summer-2026/)

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