Since final 12 months, YouTube has been cracking down on non-age-verified accounts. Though the objective is to guard the platform’s youngest viewers, the age-prediction system YouTube deployed has wrongly ensnared numerous accounts owned by adults. When you’re tagged by the system, you’ll be able to restore full entry to your account, however provided that you present proof of your age first. Now OpenAI is following YouTube’s lead and rolling its personal age-prediction system for ChatGPT accounts.
First introduced again in September 2025, OpenAI says it’s now rolling out its age prediction system for ChatGPT client accounts. Much like the YouTube device, the system will guess the age of the person and place them in one in every of two classes: over 18 or underneath 18. Based on the agency, your age will likely be decided by a mixture of a number of elements, equivalent to:
- How lengthy the account has existed
- Typical instances of day when somebody is lively
- Utilization patterns over time
- A person’s acknowledged age
If the system identifies your account as belonging to somebody underneath the age of 18, “further protections” will likely be positioned on the account. These protections will scale back publicity to sure sorts of content material, like graphic and violent photographs, dangerous viral challenges, sexual position play, depictions of self-harm, and extra. The corporate notes that folks will be capable to customise their youngster’s expertise by way of the parental controls, like setting “Quiet hours.”
After all, this method will make errors, identical to YouTube’s device does. In a scenario the place the system can’t inform the age of the person, OpenAI says it’ll default to the under-18 class. When you’re incorrectly positioned into the under-18 class, you’ll need to take a selfie and submit it to Persona, a safe identity-verification service, to regain full entry. You’ll be capable to verify if any restrictions have been positioned in your account by going to Settings > Account.
