Frontier model developer. GPT models via the first-party API Platform, plus ChatGPT Business, Enterprise, Edu and Healthcare workspaces.
7 of 7 criteria carry a sourced value · Verified August 8, 2026
Our analysis, not OpenAI’s. Every statement here traces to a sourced claim further down the page.
The broadest certification portfolio of any developer here, with a BAA available on request and a retention story that is clear but conditional.
A strong default for regulated work provided you obtain the BAA in writing and confirm which endpoints your workload actually touches.
Every criterion, with OpenAI’s own wording where it is hedged or carries exclusions, the primary source, and the date we last read it.
Safety-research posture, per the Future of Life Institute
C · 2.28 (Summer 2026)
Second overall of the nine companies graded. Shared the highest Existential Safety grade awarded to anyone in the Index, a D+.
Primary source · verified 2026-08-07
Will they sign a business associate agreement for PHI
Yes
OpenAI: "We are able to sign Business Associate Agreements (BAA) in support of customers’ compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Please reach out if you require a BAA." Phrased as a capability exercised on request rather than a standing term, and this page states no feature-level exclusions — unlike Anthropic, which enumerates them. Confirm scope in the executed agreement. ChatGPT for Healthcare is described separately as "a secure workspace designed to support HIPAA compliance".
Primary source · verified 2026-08-05
Independently audited attestations
SOC 2 Type 2 · SOC 3 · ISO/IEC 27001:2022 · ISO/IEC 27017:2015 · ISO/IEC 27018:2019 · ISO/IEC 27701:2019 · ISO/IEC 42001:2023 · CSA STAR · FedRAMP 20x · TX-RAMP · PCI DSS v4.0.1
Taken from the Compliance section of OpenAI’s Trust Portal. Note a mismatch worth carrying into diligence: the portal’s prose says only that "Our products are also ISO 27001, 27017, 27018, and 27701 certified" — ISO/IEC 42001:2023, the AI management system standard, appears in the badge list but not in that sentence. The ISO 27001 certificate is scoped "for OpenAI’s API, ChatGPT Enterprise, and ChatGPT Edu services", so certification scope is narrower than the product surface.
Primary source · verified 2026-08-07
Whether your inputs and outputs feed model training
Not by default — Opt-in. Business data is excluded by default across the API Platform and the ChatGPT business tiers; explicitly opting in, including via feedback mechanisms, permits training use.
OpenAI: "By default, we do not use your business data for training our models. If you have explicitly opted in to share your data with us (for example, through our opt-in feedback mechanisms) to improve our services, then we may use the shared data to train our models." The exclusion is dated: it covers API Platform data "(after March 1, 2023)".
Primary source · verified 2026-08-05
How long your data is kept, and where
API inputs and outputs retained up to 30 days for abuse detection; zero data retention available for eligible endpoints on approval.
OpenAI: "Except for certain endpoints and features listed in our platform documentation, OpenAI may securely retain API inputs and outputs for up to 30 days to provide the services and to identify abuse. After 30 days, API inputs and outputs are removed from our systems, unless we are legally required to retain them. You can also request zero data retention (ZDR) for eligible endpoints if you have a qualifying use-case." ZDR is conditional on both endpoint eligibility and a "qualifying use-case", so it is not a setting a customer can simply switch on. Fine-tuning data is retained "until the customer deletes the files".
Primary source · verified 2026-08-05
Who else processes your data
Named list of roughly 25 third-party sub-processors with product, processing location and purpose; opt-in email notification of additions.
Last updated by OpenAI on June 2, 2026. Columns are Entity Name, OpenAI Product or Service, Location of Processing and Purpose of Processing, which is more granular than a bare name list. Notification is opt-in and un-timed: "Sign up to receive notification of new third party Subprocessors by filling out this form." No advance-notice period is committed to, in contrast to AWS (30 days) and Microsoft (six months).
Primary source · verified 2026-07-08
Obligations, and which transfer to you as deployer
Signatory to the EU General-Purpose AI Code of Practice, the voluntary route to demonstrating compliance with the AI Act.
Read from the European Commission’s published signatory list rather than from OpenAI’s own announcement.
Primary source · verified 2026-08-07
This is a model developer, so the FLI grade above describes its safety-research posture. It says nothing about whether a deployment is compliant — that comes from the contractual terms, either this vendor’s own or those of a platform you run the model through.
This developer’s models are also available through Azure OpenAI (Microsoft Foundry), under those platforms’ terms rather than these. Where the direct API cannot meet a requirement, the platform route often can.
Safety grades come from the FLI AI Safety Index, Summer 2026 — what it measures, and what it explicitly does not.
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