OpenAI is rolling out ChatGPT for Teens, a tailored experience aimed at helping teenagers learn, develop critical thinking skills, deepen their understanding, and use AI confidently. The product includes stronger built-in safety measures for teens, tools that promote healthy usage habits, and additional controls for parents. If OpenAI's system estimates a user is under 18 or they indicate they are between 13 and 17, they are automatically placed into ChatGPT for Teens.
This release builds on earlier foundational work to support teens on OpenAI's platform, including the introduction of Parental Controls, updates to the Under-18 Model Spec, the creation of the Teen Safety Blueprint, the rollout of Age-Prediction technology, and expanded features supporting learning and healthy AI use for teens. Across all of these efforts, OpenAI has been guided by four commitments: prioritizing teen safety, encouraging real-world support, treating teens as teens, and being transparent about how systems should behave. ChatGPT for Teens reinforces and extends those commitments with a focus on learning and even stronger default protections.
Designed to Support Learning
OpenAI believes AI should broaden educational opportunity. ChatGPT for Teens was designed to assist during moments outside the classroom when help may not otherwise be available, while keeping teens engaged in active, collaborative learning. For example, a teen studying for a test can ask ChatGPT to explain an unfamiliar concept, work through a practice problem, and check their understanding. If they request a quick answer, ChatGPT for Teens can instead guide them toward the steps and questions that help them figure it out on their own. The experience brings together several features:
- Study Mode uses guiding questions and step-by-step support to help teens grasp the material.
- Responsible Homework Reminders can detect when a teen appears to be trying to shortcut an assignment and redirect them toward Study Mode for collaborative, step-by-step problem solving.
- Quizzes and Learning Visualizations give teens additional ways to practice, test their knowledge, and see difficult concepts more clearly.
- Study Hours allow teens or parents to choose times when Study Mode is enabled by default, making it easier to build better study habits into a routine.
Study Mode was developed in collaboration with teachers, scientists, and pedagogy experts and draws on longstanding research in learning science. It uses guiding questions, scaffolding, metacognitive prompts, and knowledge checks to help students work through problems step by step rather than simply receiving answers. This design aligns with broader research on effective learning techniques showing that active retrieval and self-explanation can support stronger comprehension and longer-term retention compared to passive review alone. OpenAI's own early evaluation of tools like Study Mode has also shown promising gains in student performance.
AI should support learning rather than shortcut it, and educators should remain in control of AI experiences in classrooms. In that spirit, ChatGPT for Teens is designed to support learning outside the classroom, while ChatGPT for Teachers continues to provide educators and school districts with secure, institution-managed access to AI and practical support for effective use.
Partnership with CodeAI to Prepare Teens
To help prepare the first AI-native generation of students, OpenAI and CodeAI are announcing a signature partnership to give students and educators access to tools and resources for learning how to use and benefit from AI. The partnership focuses on the education surrounding the technology: helping teens understand how AI works, direct it, question it, and create with it-with teachers playing a meaningful role in shaping how AI enters the classroom.
How Teens Are Already Building with AI
Teens are already using AI not only to study but also to build tools, teach themselves new skills, and work on problems in their communities. These are exactly the kinds of uses ChatGPT for Teens is meant to foster: capable, learning-centered AI that helps young people move from understanding ideas to applying them.
In Virginia, Rushil Kukreja, Arhan Menta, and Nayel Rehman developed WiFind, a search-and-rescue system that uses existing Wi-Fi signals to help locate survivors trapped beneath rubble after natural disasters. The project grew out of volunteer work with a local search-and-rescue organization. In Texas, Crystal Yang used ChatGPT to help develop and scale Audemy, a platform that creates audio-based educational games for blind students, reaching 200,000 users and 50 games.
While each teen used ChatGPT in different ways, they all illustrate the kinds of uses OpenAI wants to support: learning from complex material, building with guidance, and applying new skills to real problems.
Stronger Protections Enabled by Default
For teen users, protections are part of the default experience. ChatGPT for Teens applies age-appropriate safeguards for users under 18, designed to reduce exposure to content that may be harmful or developmentally inappropriate while preserving the ability to learn, create, and explore.
These protections are based on OpenAI's Under-18 Principles in the Model Spec, informed by developmental science and guidance from experts. In practice, this means age-appropriate model protections and product interventions in higher-risk areas such as self-harm, violence, eating disorders, dangerous activities, and explicit sexual or graphic content.
This work also builds on family tools introduced with parental controls and notifications. Parents with linked teen accounts can set Quiet Hours, manage selected settings, and receive safety notifications in limited high-risk situations. OpenAI is adding additional notifications related to eating disorders while limiting what is shared and focusing on moments when offline support may matter most.
Promoting Healthy, Balanced Use
ChatGPT for Teens is designed to support real-world relationships and healthy habits, with break reminders that encourage teens to step away and product cues that consistently identify ChatGPT as AI.
OpenAI continues to strengthen ChatGPT's age-appropriate behavior for users under 18. The updated under-18 model spec goes beyond blocking romantic or sexualized roleplay: ChatGPT should not use romantic language, encourage emotional dependence, or imply that it has feelings or consciousness. These stronger protections are designed to reinforce healthy, real-world relationships.
Additional cues and controls are being added to reduce risk in context and point teens toward useful tools and protections, including:
- Sensitive-image upload reminders that caution teens against sharing private or sensitive images.
- Teen-specific onboarding that introduces learning and safety features from the start.
- Simple customization options, like accent colors and voice variations, that help make the experience feel personal without blurring the line between a useful tool and a human relationship.
Ongoing Research for Safe Teen AI Use
These protections are supported by ongoing safety research informed by developmental science, expert input, and testing of model safeguards in areas where teens may face distinct or heightened risks. This work helps OpenAI refine policies for under-18 users, strengthen product protections, and improve how progress is measured over time.
OpenAI is beginning to share more of this work publicly, starting with new under-18 evaluations added to system cards that show how models perform against teen-specific standards in challenging sensitive-content cases. These evaluations cover areas such as self-harm, eating disorders, violence, age-restricted goods and services, and sexual content, and are designed to help advance understanding of model performance on teen safety.
Looking Ahead
OpenAI will continue building additional features so teens can benefit from AI, and will measure and publish what is learned along the way. Teens should be able to use AI to learn, create, and explore, but that access should come with protections reflecting their developmental stage, reinforcing real-world relationships, and supporting healthy use over time. ChatGPT for Teens represents OpenAI's next step toward building to that standard.