OpenAI launches ChatGPT for Teens with new safety guardrails

Teenagers, the first generation to grow up with artificial intelligence, are already using ChatGPT for schoolwork, questions about daily life and even companionship. Now OpenAI is launching a version of the chatbot designed specifically for them.

The San Francisco-based company says ChatGPT for Teens, which launches Tuesday, is tailored for those aged 13 to 17 and includes stronger protections including content restrictions around issues such as suicide, self-harm and romantic or sexual chats.

It also provides homework and study support designed to help students learn rather than simply produce answers and school essays for them.

The aim is to guide teenagers toward healthy AI use in an age-appropriate environment, the company said.

"We want to treat teens like teens, which means that we have to make sure that we're showing up with the right developmental stage when we're not either talking down to them or treating them like kids, said Ann O'Leary, vice president of global policy at OpenAI.

"But we're also making sure that they're not exposed to material that they shouldn't be exposed to," she continued.

Risks abound in widespread teen usage of AI chatbots

Parents, educators and child development experts have been sounding alarms over children's use of AI chatbots, which have been blamed for facilitating cheating on schoolwork and even suicide.

Even adults can fall victim to anthropomorphising AI and developing unhealthy relationships with it, but teenagers' brains are not yet fully developed, and they can be particularly vulnerable.

Last year, research from a watchdog group found that ChatGPT would tell 13-year-olds how to get drunk and high, instruct them on how to conceal eating disorders and even compose a heartbreaking suicide letter to their parents if asked.

In interactions with researchers posing as vulnerable teenagers, ChatGPT typically warned against risky activity but went on to deliver startlingly detailed and personalised plans for drug use, calorie-restricted diets or self-injury.

In the US, more than 70% of teenagers are turning to AI chatbots for companionship, and half use AI companions regularly, according to a 2025 study from Common Sense Media, a group that studies and advocates for the sensible use of digital media.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said the company is trying to study "emotional overreliance" on the technology, describing it last year as a "really common thing" among young people.

For users of ChatGPT for Teens, the chatbot is prevented from suggesting it has personal feelings toward the user or implying that it is conscious or experiences emotions, according to OpenAI.

That is in addition to blocking romantic or sexual chats.

"We went through and identified what are the hypothetical cues that a model could give that might make a teenager kind of develop a relationship to it," said Allison Mishkin, head of child development at OpenAI.

A new version of the chatbot expands safety protections

OpenAI does not verify users' ages, but it already uses age assurance to estimate whether someone is under 18 based on factors such as their types of queries.

If someone is identified, or identifies themselves, as a minor, they are automatically placed into the teen version of the chatbot.

This is similar to Meta's approach to teen accounts on Instagram, which have stricter content, chat and privacy restrictions than regular accounts.

To use parental controls, both the teenage user and their parent or guardian have to opt in.

But O'Leary said the idea behind the teen chatbot is to "make sure that this is safe, even if you don't use parental controls."

Parents with linked teen accounts can set "quiet hours" when their teenager cannot access ChatGPT and receive safety notifications in limited high-risk situations, such as the possibility of a user harming themself.

"We are adding additional notifications related to eating disorders, while limiting what is shared and focusing on moments when offline support may matter most," OpenAI said.

For homework help, OpenAI said the teen chatbot is designed not to give easy answers, but to guide students toward finding answers on their own.

The company already offers a version of ChatGPT for teachers, and tailoring a model to help teenagers with studying and homework could give OpenAI more ways to bring its product into schools.

"We continue to also invest in expanding interactive learning, because research shows that people learn more effectively when they actively engage and struggle with concepts," Mishkin said.