Since final 12 months, YouTube has been cracking down on non-age-verified accounts. Though the aim is to guard the platform’s youngest viewers, the age-prediction system YouTube deployed has wrongly ensnared numerous accounts owned by adults. In case 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 shopper accounts. Just like the YouTube device, the system will guess the age of the person and place them in certainly one of two classes: over 18 or below 18. In accordance with the agency, your age will probably be decided by a mixture of a number of components, reminiscent of:
- How lengthy the account has existed
- Typical occasions 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 below the age of 18, “further protections” will probably 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 oldsters will be capable to customise their youngster’s expertise by the parental controls, like setting “Quiet hours.”
After all, this method will make errors, identical to YouTube’s device does. In a state of affairs the place the system can’t inform the age of the person, OpenAI says it can default to the under-18 class. In case you’re incorrectly positioned into the under-18 class, you’ll should 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.
