OpenAI Usage Policies

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OpenAI·openai.com/policies/usage-policies

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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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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](https://openai.com/safety/how-we-think-about-safety-alignment/) about our safety approach and [our commitment to](https://openai.com/index/introducing-the-model-spec/) 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](https://openai.com/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](https://openai.com/transparency-and-content-moderation/) policies with privacy safeguards in place and clear review processes. We give developers practical [moderation tools⁠(opens in a new window)](https://platform.openai.com/docs/guides/moderation) and guidance so they can support their end users. We [publish](https://openai.com/safety/) what our systems can and can’t do, share [research](https://openai.com/research/index/) and [updates](https://openai.com/news/), and provide a simple way to [report misuse](https://openai.com/form/report-content/).

**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](https://openai.com/transparency-and-content-moderation/#:~:text=determining%20enforcement%20actions.-,Appeals%20process,-If%2

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