Announcements 2026 Usage Policy update Oct 8, 2026 Each year, Anthropic updates its Usage Policy in response to the evolving capabilities of our models, and the feedback we’ve received from our customers. We're publishing a new version of the policy today. In this post, we summarize the changes we’ve made. Most of the updates in the latest version are intended to clarify existing rules. In the year since our last refresh, Claude has taken on longer, more independent work. This update provides new examples that show how our rules apply to Claude’s new capabilities. It draws on new patterns of misuse in influence operations, weapons development, and surveillance that we’ve observed in the past year (as we’ve documented in our latest threat intelligence report ). We’ve also made updates to clarify our requirements for high-risk use cases in areas like health and finance, to add controls for when Claude is used to autonomously take physical actions, and to address abusive behavior toward our models. The updated policy takes effect on November 12. The full Usage Policy and Supported Regions Policy can be found on their respective pages. A new section on deceptive activity As we wrote about last month , we’ve seen examples of state media outlets, government propaganda offices, and commercial firms using Claude to run networks of fake accounts and fabricated news sites. Our policy already prohibited this activity, but the restrictions were scattered across our elections, fraud, privacy, and disinformation sections. We've consolidated those rules into a new section titled Do Not Engage in Deceptive Campaigns or Artificial Activity, which applies to deceptive activity of any kind (whether political or commercial). It covers efforts to obscure who is behind a message or amplify content through fake accounts or posts, along with building the tools and infrastructure for running influence operation campaigns. Refocusing our elections section We’ve refined our political content restrictions in each version of our Usage Policy in order to ensure that our models can be used appropriately in democratic processes. In this version, we’ve further sharpened our section on elections, focusing it specifically on disallowing the use of Claude to deceive voters or disrupt elections (for instance, by spreading false information about candidates or how to vote, impersonating candidates or election officials, or trying to suppress turnout). We’ve renamed it Do Not Undermine Democratic Processes to reflect that scope. For a similar reason, we’ve also removed our blanket prohibition on personalized vote and campaign targeting. This prohibition covered legitimate civic work, such as nonprofits using Claude to write information for voters in other languages, or election officials sending ballot cure notices. The behaviors that motivated the original rule (like voter targeting that relies on deception or the misuse of voters’ personal data) remain prohibited under our deceptive campaigns, surveillance, and privacy sections. Clarifying our weapons prohibitions Our Usage Policy has always prohibited using Claude to develop weapons. Recently, we’ve seen people attempt to use our models to build guidance and control software for weapons. The updated section makes clear that our prohibitions include the software and components that make weapons work, as well as actions like arming drones and other autonomous vehicles. These changes reflect how we’ve enforced our previous policy. More precise language on surveillance and law enforcement Our September threat intelligence report documented the growing use of AI to build surveillance systems that identify and track political dissidents.