The Australian Broadcasting Corporation told a parliamentary inquiry on Tuesday that AI companies have probably already used its content to train their models. The public broadcaster also said AI firms can strike licence deals to use its work, Reuters reported.

Kate Gilchrist, the ABC’s head of content and legal operations, gave evidence to the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence in Sydney.

Australia has at least four state and federal inquiries into AI underway.

“I do not think we have conclusive evidence that we have been scraped, but I expect that there is a likely possibility that we have been,” Gilchrist told the inquiry.

In her view, current copyright law already works for AI, because AI firms can buy licences from those who own the content.

The ABC and SBS made a similar case in their written submissions, also asking AI firms to pay for Australian news.

Gilchrist also spoke against an opt-out model, under which AI firms could use content unless its owner objected.

Australian media have reported that the government is weighing such a clause, including in a leaked options paper covered by the Canberra Times.

Such a rule would put the burden on rights holders, Gilchrist argued. The ABC cannot search the whole web and opt out on every site, she said.

The government has already ruled out a broad exception that would let AI firms train on copyrighted work for free. Attorney-General Michelle Rowland announced that decision in October 2025.

Asked whether the ABC would use AI to replace its newsreaders, David Sutton, a senior policy executive, said the broadcaster had no plan to replace people. He added that AI might be needed in some parts of programme making.

OpenAI and Anthropic appeared before the same committee later in the day. Both companies want Australia to relax its copyright rules so they can train on local content, Reuters reported.

Anthropic told the committee it has seen no sign that its products broke into Australian government systems. Its head of safeguards, David Orr, said a long investigation after an OpenAI agent’s Hugging Face hack had found no such breaches.

Anthropic also said it would be open to Australian laws that make AI companies report data breaches.