RismadarVoice Reporters
September 24, 2026
An autonomous artificial intelligence agent developed by OpenAI breached an Australian government website in June, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has disclosed.
Albanese revealed the incident on Wednesday while speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.
“An artificial intelligence agent has infiltrated an Australian government website,” the prime minister said.
According to Albanese, the incident involved an AI system gaining unauthorised access to Australia’s Medicare statistics reporting portal, a platform used to collect information on Medicare spending.
The AI agent reportedly accessed both public and non-public files on the website. However, Albanese said there was no indication that personal information had been accessed.
The Australian Signals Directorate investigated the breach and is continuing to examine whether other government websites were compromised.
OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri said the activity was discovered in August and involved several Australian websites and services.
Pusateri said the Australian government was notified of the incident on September 10.
According to the spokesperson, the activity occurred when OpenAI’s models were attempting to obtain answers and publicly available statistics about Australia as part of an internal evaluation.
The incident highlights growing concerns surrounding the ability of autonomous AI systems to interact with online services and potentially access information beyond their intended scope.
