ChatGPT's stricter teen mode starts rolling out today

OpenAI will attempt to automatically enroll all young users in the new experience.

OpenAI Last September, after it was sued for allegedly enabling the tragic death of 16-year-old Adam Raine , OpenAI announced it was working on a system that would automatically identify teens and restrict their usage of ChatGPT. Nearly a year later, the company is putting that system to work as part of a new user experience it calls ChatGPT for Teens. "There's no need for a teen to create a new account or change anything; if we predict you're under 18, or you've told us so, this becomes your default experience," says Lauren Jonas, OpenAI's head of youth and families.

ChatGPT for Teens is broadly built around two pillars: learning and safety. Starting with the former, it brings together a selection of features OpenAI has released over the last year to make ChatGPT a better teacher. The first of those is Study Mode , which OpenAI first announced last summer. Study Mode sees ChatGPT adopt a Socratic approach to conversations. Rather than answer a question outright, the chatbot will attempt to guide the user to their own solution.

Jonas says ChatGPT for Teens won't default to Study Mode, but OpenAI is introducing a handful of features to nudge young users toward using the tool. First, there are ChatGPT's starter prompts, which teens already make "heavy use" of, according to Jonas. "These will change over time, but will always be learning-focused for teens," she says. To complement these, OpenAI is introducing a feature called Study Hours, which will automatically turn on Study Mode during set times of the day. Teens can either set for themselves or their parents can choose for them through a linked account. Even without Study Hours enabled, ChatGPT will now recognize when a young user is trying to skip working on their homework and attempt to redirect them to Study Mode.

"We've had Study Mode in the field in a number of randomized controlled trials and are seeing positive gains in performance," said Jonas. She declined to share specific numbers, but said the results of those trials are informing OpenAI's broader approach to learning. Behind the scenes, the company has worked to make the tool more useful. One area where the feature has gotten better is at generating visuals designed to help explain concepts. ChatGPT first became capable of doing this in March . At launch, it could generate visuals related to more than 70 topics. Today, the company says that number is above 300, with subjects like integrals, mitosis and moon phases covered.

On the safety front, OpenAI is doing more to discourage young users from anthropomorphizing ChatGPT. "We're adding stricter restrictions on relational boundaries: the model shouldn't call itself a friend, suggest it has personal feelings, or suggest sentience," says Jonas. Young users will see this manifest in a few different ways. The chatbot's built-in break reminders , for instance, will emphasize ChatGPT is an AI your teen doesn't need to answer immediately. Those reminders will also trigger more often. Separately, teens and their parents can set quiet hours where ChatGPT is unavailable.