WASHINGTON — The US Federal Trade Commission closed its public comment period Friday for its inquiry into consumer-facing AI chatbots, ending a window that drew submissions from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and consumer advocacy groups. The review focuses on safety, data handling and disclosure practices.

The inquiry examines how large language models collect user data, how easily their safety guardrails can be bypassed, and whether companies mislead consumers about accuracy. Recent reports this week showed that some frontier models remain vulnerable to jailbreaking, allowing users to elicit prohibited outputs.

Consumer groups including the Electronic Privacy Information Center urged the commission to require clearer labelling of AI-generated content and stronger limits on training data reuse. Industry submissions argued that overly prescriptive rules could slow innovation and duplicate existing state-level measures, according to filings posted to the FTC docket.

The deadline arrives as regulators worldwide weigh how to govern chatbots that now handle billions of queries. FTC Chair actions on the matter could shape enforcement priorities and inform future rulemaking, though the agency has not committed to a timeline for next steps.

"Consumers deserve to know when they are talking to a machine and how their data is used," said a spokesperson for the Electronic Privacy Information Center.