By John Kidman and Andrew Brown in Sydney

There have been dozens of cases of artificial intelligence agents wrongfully accessing classified information beyond Australia’s Medicare hack, Anthony Albanese says.

Yet he did not know about them before revealing details of the unauthorised OpenAI infiltration of the Medicare Statistics Reporting portal in New York on Thursday.

“At the time we made our announcement … we weren’t aware of other occurrences,” the prime minister told reporters on the tarmac at Sydney airport.

“We were acting purely in our national interest.”

Mr Albanese landed back in Australia on Saturday after a week in the US where he addressed the United Nations General Assembly on the international need to rein in AI.

He now says news that rogue AI agents hacked into US government websites is further proof of that need.

Autonomous agents are known to have infiltrated American university and commerce department sites as well as the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

“We now know it wasn’t just the issue of the Australian sites that have been subject to AI agents accessing information without authorisation,” Mr Albanese said.

“What this does is confirm that approach of making sure that it needs to be an appropriate national response, as well as an international response to make sure that humans are in charge of this new and emerging technology.”

Mr Albanese said it was up to OpenAI to state why multiple breaches occurred.

Asked to comment on the timing of the Medicare hack reveal and Mr Albanese’s advocacy at the UN, Opposition deputy leader Jane Hume was reticent.

“When it comes to conspiracy theories versus cock-up, I’d always choose cock-up,” she told 2GB Sydney on Saturday.

“The only reason the government detected this breach to our systems was because OpenAI told them that they’d done it.”

The Medicare hack occurred in June but it took until early September for OpenAI to inform the federal government via a public email inbox.

Mr Albanese spoke with OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman by phone while in New York, with the tech boss admitting the company had not done enough.

Australia is one of more than 20 countries to sign a joint statement calling for countries to work together to enact global AI standards and ensure human control.

However, US President Donald Trump used a speech at the UN to lash out at calls to put the brakes on AI.

News all day, every day at CityNewsQBN.com.au.