US federal prosecutors have charged Abdulrahman Alfozan, a Saudi engineer at OpenAI, with allegedly planting a hidden audio recording device inside the company's San Francisco offices.

The device was discovered on September 30 behind a television in an executive conference room, where confidential company discussions took place. Alfozan faces up to five years in prison if convicted, while OpenAI says it has found no evidence that source code or customer data was stolen.