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OpenAI Usage Policies
webCredibility Rating
4/5
High(4)High quality. Established institution or organization with editorial oversight and accountability.
Rating inherited from publication venue: OpenAI
This is OpenAI's official usage policy document, relevant for understanding how a leading AI lab operationalizes deployment-time safety governance and what behaviors are treated as hard limits versus soft guidelines.
Metadata
Importance: 55/100guidance documentreference
Summary
OpenAI's official usage policies outline the rules and restrictions governing how its AI models and APIs may be used, including prohibited use cases and safety guidelines. The policies cover disallowed activities such as generating disinformation, facilitating influence operations, creating harmful content, and misusing AI for deceptive or dangerous purposes. These policies serve as a practical governance framework for responsible deployment of OpenAI's systems.
Key Points
- •Defines explicitly prohibited use cases including weapons development, disinformation, influence operations, and content that endangers safety.
- •Establishes guidelines for operators and users on acceptable deployment of OpenAI models through the API.
- •Addresses specific harms like CSAM, cybersecurity exploitation, and political manipulation as hard limits.
- •Outlines a tiered responsibility model where OpenAI sets baseline rules, operators customize within those limits, and users operate within operator-set bounds.
- •Serves as a living policy document subject to updates as AI capabilities and risk landscapes evolve.
Cited by 3 pages
| Page | Type | Quality |
|---|---|---|
| AI Misuse Risk Cruxes | Crux | 65.0 |
| AI Proliferation Risk Model | Analysis | 65.0 |
| AI Disinformation | Risk | 54.0 |
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The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20260409123603/https://openai.com/policies/usage-policies/
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Effective: October 29, 2025
Usage policies
We aim for our tools to be used safely and responsibly, while maximizing your control over how you use them. In building our Usage Policies, we keep a few important things in mind.
We empower users to innovate with AI. We build AI products that maximize helpfulness and freedom, while ensuring safety. Usage Policies are just one way we set clear expectations for the use of our products within a broader safety ecosystem that sets responsible guardrails across our services. You can learn more about our safety approach and our commitment to customizability, transparency, and intellectual freedom to explore, debate, and create with AI.
Responsible use is a shared priority. We assume the very best of our users. Our terms and policies—including these Usage Policies—set a reasonable bar for acceptable use. Our rules are no substitute for legal requirements, professional duties, or ethical obligations that should influence how people use AI. We hold people accountable for inappropriate use of our services, and breaking or circumventing our rules and safeguards may mean you lose access to our systems or experience other penalties.
We build with safety first. We monitor and enforce policies with privacy safeguards in place and clear review processes. We give developers practical moderation tools(opens in a new window) and guidance so they can support their end users. We publish what our systems can and can’t do, share research and updates, and provide a simple way to report misuse.
We update as we learn. People are using our systems in new ways every day, and we update our rules to ensure they are not overly restrictive or to better protect our users. We reserve all rights to withhold access where we reasonably believe it necessary to protect our service or users or anyone else. You can appeal if you think we have made a mistake enforcing policy, and we will work to make things right. If you’d like to keep up with Usage Policies updates, complete this fo
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