OpenAI launches a safer ChatGPT for teens — years after teens started using it

After numerous lawsuits over AI chatbots’ lack of safety measures, leading to teens’ suicides and other mental health concerns, OpenAI on Monday announced the launch of ChatGPT for Teens. The new product promises to include additional safety measures, as well as address the educational crisis of…

After numerous lawsuits over AI chatbots’ lack of safety measures, leading to teens’ suicides and other mental health concerns, OpenAI on Monday announced the launch of ChatGPT for Teens. The new product promises to include additional safety measures, as well as address the educational crisis of ChatGPT-assisted cheating in schools. On the educational side, ChatGPT for Teens introduces a new Study Mode feature and other tools designed to encourage teen users to engage their curiosity and work through problems, not just get quick answers. As OpenAI explains in a blog post, the Study Mode option will give teens guiding questions and step-by-step support to help them understand the material. Meanwhile, the teen experience will also include homework reminders that appear when a teen appears to be trying to cheat, instead of understanding the material. The AI chatbot will then push the teen to use Study Mode instead. The app will also support quizzes and learning visualizations, and controls that allow parents or guardians to decide when Study Mode is enabled by default, the company says. Still, it’s not clear how difficult it will be for teens to escape these new systems if they decide not to cooperate. Teens are incredibly adept at working around parental controls and other attempts to lock down digital experiences. Until ChatGPT’s teen mode can be put to more strenuous tests, it’s unclear how difficult it will be to work around these safety measures in reality. Image Credits:OpenAI There’s also the question as to why these protections weren’t part of ChatGPT from the beginning. The AI chatbot first arrived in late 2022 and scaled to 900 million weekly users before meaningful safeguards designed specifically for teenage users were added. OpenAI says the age-appropriate protections will now be on by default in ChatGPT for Teens, which are designed to reduce exposure to harmful or developmentally inappropriate content. These measures are based on OpenAI’s Under-18 Principles in our Model Spec, which the company claims to be informed by “developmental science and guidance from experts.” Parents will also be able to use the family tools and parental controls previously introduced to manage settings, receive safety notifications, and set Quiet Hours, among other things. OpenAI announced a partnership with CodeAI to help teens learn more about AI, including how it works, how to direct it or question it, and how to use it. In the classroom, OpenAI already offers ChatGPT for Teachers to help provide schools with institution-managed access to AI and support. Topics AI, OpenAI, Teens When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence. Sarah Perez Consumer News Editor Sarah has worked as a reporter for TechCrunch since August 2011. She joined the company after having previously spent over three years at ReadWriteWeb. Prior to her work as a reporter, Sarah worked in I.T. across a number of industries, including banking, retail and software. You can contact or verify outreach from Sarah by emailing sarahp@techcrunch.com or via encrypted message at sarahperez.01 on Signal. View Bio October 13 – 15 San Francisco Scale faster. Grow your portfolio. Gain practical expertise. No matter your goal, Disrupt can empower you.Save up to $300 today! REGISTER NOW Most Popular Stripe will reportedly acquire AI gateway startup OpenRouter for $7B+ Anthony Ha Anthropic shares more details about how Claude’s new watermarks will work Anthony Ha Apple proposes to take a 15% cut of purchases made outside the App Store Sarah Perez If Apple sends you a push notification alerting you to a spyware attack, take it seriously Zack Whittaker Anthropic set AI agents loose on the same task. They started a turf war. Rebecca Bellan Instagram introduces a redesigned wordmark Sarah Perez Some Claude users are mad that Anthropic’s new watermarks will catch them using it at their jobs, classes Lucas Ropek

Source: TechCrunch — Published August 18, 2026 at 13:50 UTC — Category: Business