OpenAI launches Patch the Planet, a free security program to help open-source projects fix vulnerabilities faster, as AI bug-hunting tools overwhelm volunteer maintainers.

What happened

OpenAI, in partnership with security firm Trail of Bits and vulnerability management firms HackerOne and Calif, announced Patch the Planet on Monday. The program offers free security consulting to open-source maintainers, helping them find and patch vulnerabilities and incorporate AI security tools into their development process. More than 30 open-source projects are already participating, and the program has uncovered hundreds of bugs and produced dozens of patches in its first week.

Why it matters

Open-source developers—typically volunteers with limited resources—are struggling to keep up with bug reports. The rise of AI vulnerability hunting has made this backlog feel unmanageable as AI-generated reports pile up, pulling attention away from critical flaws. Patch the Planet aims to reduce this burden by subsidizing token costs (OpenAI has been subsidizing Codex Security scanner usage "to the tune of 20 trillion tokens") and providing human expertise to offset maintainers' workload.

What to watch

Participants receive six months of free ChatGPT Pro and six months of Codex Security access, plus infrastructure improvements they can use long-term. Trail of Bits, funded by OpenAI with unmetered model access, plans to continue the program long-term. The announcement comes as OpenAI competes with Anthropic, which had to pull its Mythos 5 and Fable 5 models from the market earlier this month due to export controls over cybersecurity capabilities.