The law firm acting as OpenAI’s sherpa in Washington

When OpenAI’s Sam Altman swept into Washington this May for the Senate’s blockbuster hearing on artificial intelligence, he dazzled lawmakers from both parties with his “genuine and authentic” willingness to work with Congress. But Altman’s polished performance was no accident — behind the scenes, the celebrity tech executive was being coached by inside operators at DLA Piper, a globe-spanning law firm with deep ties to official Washington.

According to two people with knowledge of the relationship, DLA Piper has been advising Altman on how to testify before Congress and charm lawmakers since at least the spring of 2023. The two people said the firm is now coaching Altman ahead of his appearance at Wednesday’s first AI Insight Forum, a CEO-studded confab being convened by Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and featuring a slew of other tech executives.

The two people requested anonymity due to the previously non-public nature of the partnership between DLA Piper and OpenAI. DLA Piper spokesperson Geneva Youel confirmed to POLITICO that the law firm “has a business relationship with OpenAI and provides strategic advice to the company on a variety of topics," but declined to elaborate or to disclose what OpenAI is paying DLA Piper.

Spokespeople for OpenAI declined to comment.

Altman is the most prominent of the new cast of characters thrust into the Washington maelstrom by the congressional effort to write new rules for AI, and he's arguably more responsible than anyone for Capitol Hill’s surging interest. Last year’s release of ChatGPT, OpenAI’s uncannily effective large language model, was the spark that spurred Congress and the White House into action.

But despite Altman’s increasingly frequent visits to Washington, the company’s official footprint in the capital remains light. OpenAI is now hiring for a U.S. congressional lead, a sign that it hopes to soon boost its D.C. presence.

Until OpenAI stands up its own operation, it’s likely to rely on DLA Piper as its sherpa in Washington. The law firm has aggressively leaned into AI policy – it was an early adopter of OpenAI’s GPT-4 language model, announcing in March that it would use GPT-4 to build a “first of its kind” AI legal assistant. Also in March, DLA Piper announced the creation of an AI and Data Analytics Practice led by Danny Tobey, partner at DLA Piper and a former software executive. The new AI practice includes approximately ten data scientists under the leadership of Bennett Borden, formerly a data scientist at the Central Intelligence Agency.

According to lobbying disclosures, DLA Piper also spent several years lobbying on AI issues for the Future of Life Institute, the nonprofit that organized an open letter this spring where a number of tech luminaries called for a pause in “giant” AI experiments. The law firm first listed the institute as a client at the end of 2020, and the relationship between DLA Piper and the Future of Life Institute was terminated in the second quarter of this year – roughly the same time frame as Altman’s first congressional testimony.

DLA Piper’s “AI bench” includes senior policy advisor Tony Samp, a former staffer for Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) who was founding director of the Senate's AI Working Group; Paul Hemmersbaugh, the former chief counsel at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and author of the first federal autonomous vehicle policy; and John Gevertz, the former chief privacy officer and chair of the data use council at Visa.