Overview

• CEO Sam Altman said on X that erotic interactions will be available only by opt-in for age‑verified adults starting in December.
• OpenAI says “new tools” allow it to relax prior restrictions, pointing to recent safeguards such as GPT-5 safety features, an age‑prediction system and parental controls.
• The company has not detailed what erotic content will include or whether images or video will be allowed, and it has yet to explain definitive verification methods beyond suggesting an ID upload if adults are misclassified as minors.
• The step follows heightened scrutiny after reports of harms to minors, including a lawsuit by parents of a 16‑year‑old who died, and comes as California enacts a 2026 child‑protection law for AI chatbots.
• Rival platforms like xAI’s Grok already offer sexualized features, and analysts frame OpenAI’s plan as part of personalization and monetization efforts for a service used by roughly 800 million people each week.