OpenAI is putting teenagers into a separate, more restricted version of ChatGPT - and nobody has to ask for it.
OpenAI launched ChatGPT for Teens on Tuesday, a distinct version of the chatbot built for under-18 users. Anyone who tells the system they are between 13 and 17 gets routed there by default. So does anyone the company's age-prediction system estimates is a minor, regardless of what age they typed in. The rollout began globally on August 18.
The notable part isn't the teen product itself - plenty of platforms have age-gated tiers. It's the automatic enrollment. Instead of asking younger users to opt into restrictions, OpenAI is defaulting them in and leaving it to an algorithm, not a birthdate field, to make the call when self-reporting fails.
That puts a lot of weight on the age-prediction system's judgment, and OpenAI hasn't said how accurate it actually is. Anyone can still just type a different number - the real test is whether the algorithm catches the ones who do.