OpenAI Turns Toward Households as Children's Use of ChatGPT Grows

OpenAI is broadening its focus beyond individual users to families, according to reporting by TechCrunch. The company is hiring a dedicated product manager in San Francisco to build experiences for families, caregivers, and older adults across its products. The role calls for experience building products for parents and families, and other trust-sensitive consumer experiences.

The shift carries particular weight for children. New research published this week by the Family Online Safety Institute found that parents are underestimating how often their children use generative AI. While 27% of United States parents said their child had used generative AI in the past week, 38% of children reported doing so themselves, according to a survey of more than 4,000 families in the United States and Australia.

Stephen Balkam, chief executive of the Family Online Safety Institute, described the hiring as safety by redesign, a response to products first released without children in mind. He said AI companies should build products differently for younger users, including:

• stronger content controls
• age-appropriate experiences
• parental oversight
• reminders that users are interacting with an AI and not a human

The move comes amid growing scrutiny of how AI companies protect younger users. OpenAI has faced multiple lawsuits from parents alleging that ChatGPT contributed to harm suffered by their children, including in cases involving suicide. Over the past year the company has introduced parental controls for teen accounts, routing of sensitive conversations to reasoning models designed to handle signs of distress, and an optional feature that can alert a family member or caregiver in cases of potential self-harm.

The original reporting is by TechCrunch: OpenAI bets on families as ChatGPT goes deeper into households.