On Monday, tech giant OpenAI launched a ambitious initiative called Patch the Planet, enlisting security experts and AI models to secure open-source code.

The project seeks to help maintainers find and fix vulnerabilities in their projects more efficiently. With support from Trail of Bits and HackerOne, OpenAI is offering free security consulting services and subsidizing usage of its Codex Security scanner for both open-source and private code.

OpenAI's cyber tech lead Fouad Matin explains that the goal is to reduce the burden on maintainers who are often struggling with AI-generated bug reports. 'We want to offset costs, whether it’s tokens or people power,' he says, aiming to patch as much software as possible sustainably.

Competing against Anthropic, whose Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models were recently pulled from the market due to cybersecurity concerns, OpenAI is focusing on improving its GPT-5.5-Cyber model for cyber security applications. This move signals a fierce race in AI cybersecurity as both companies prepare for IPOs.

Dan Guido of Trail of Bits says, 'Patch the Planet is an internet-scale effort to help open-source software get ahead of AI bug-hunting tools.' With more than 30 projects already on board and hundreds of bugs identified in just its first week, it seems this initiative could be a game-changer for securing our digital infrastructure.