OpenAI has published a help article this week on the official website describing What is API Organization Verification and How Companies can Qualify It?
The purpose of this verification process is to ensure developers have access to advanced AI models that will be released in the future.
According to the help article, OpenAI has to take this step to ensure safe usage of the AI along with its broader accessibility. Currently, some developers are intentionally violating the usage policies of existing API features, leading the firm to make this move.
“At OpenAI, we take our responsibility seriously to ensure that AI is both broadly accessible and used safely. Unfortunately, a small minority of developers intentionally use the OpenAI APIs in violation of our usage policies. We're adding the verification process to mitigate unsafe use of AI while continuing to make advanced models available to the broader developer community.”, as stated in the API’s help article.
There have been multiple instances where the misuse of AI has led to violations. For instance, Bloomberg reported that in late 2024, a group linked to GPT alternatives like Deepseek leveraged the API to access a large amount of data. As you might have already guessed, to train their own AI models.
Now here’s the thing: the API verification method requires some documentation and conditions to qualify. Here’s what we picked from the official article:
“To become verified, you'll need:
- A valid government-issued ID from one of our supported countries.
- You must not have recently verified another organization, as each ID can only verify one organization every 90 days.
- Please note, not all organizations will be eligible for verification. You may check again at a later date to see if verification becomes available for your organization.”
