AI tools are now exacerbating a largely hidden problem that frontier AI companies have been contending with for years: the risk that employees will exploit their access to spy on their employers.

Why it matters: The same AI tools that companies are racing to release can also help people plan crimes and develop the technology to carry them out, creating another security headache for the companies building them.

Driving the news: Federal prosecutors charged Abdulrahman Alfozan, a Saudi national who has been an OpenAI engineer since July 2025, with allegedly attempting to intercept private conversations at OpenAI.

Around Sept.…