OpenAI launches ChatGPT for Teens with added safety controls

OpenAI launched ChatGPT for Teens on Tuesday, August 18, introducing a version of the chatbot designed for users aged 13 to 17 with additional safety restrictions and study-focused features.

The teen experience includes stronger limits around suicide, self-harm, romantic and sexual conversations. OpenAI says the system is also designed to avoid presenting itself as conscious or suggesting that it has personal feelings toward a user, an effort aimed at reducing unhealthy emotional attachment.

Parents who link their accounts can set quiet hours and receive limited notifications in certain high-risk situations. Both the teenager and parent or guardian must opt in to the parental-control connection.

OpenAI does not require age verification for every user. Instead, it uses age-assurance signals, including patterns in queries, to estimate whether an account belongs to someone under 18. Users identified as minors are placed into the teen experience.

For schoolwork, the product is intended to guide students through problems instead of simply supplying completed answers or essays. The launch comes amid continuing concern from parents, educators and child-development specialists about cheating, harmful content and young people forming dependent relationships with chatbots.

The safeguards will be tested by how accurately the system identifies minors, how reliably its restrictions work and whether families use the optional parental tools.