OpenAI launched ChatGPT for Teens on Tuesday, a walled version of its chatbot for users aged 13 to 17 that blocks romantic and sexual chats, restricts content around suicide, self-harm and eating disorders, and pushes homework queries into a new Study Mode that steers away from direct answers. The product ships against a backdrop of active litigation, not ahead of it.

Per an OpenAI blog post, users who identify as under 18 at sign-up will be dropped into the teen experience automatically, and an AI-based age-estimation system will route suspected minors into the protective settings regardless of the birthdate on their profile. The teen product also bars ChatGPT from using terms of endearment and instructs the model not to imply it has feelings, consciousness or emotions.

“We went through and identified what are the hypothetical cues that a model could give that might make a teenager kind of develop a relationship to it,” said Allison Mishkin, OpenAI’s head of child development.

That framing matters because the lawsuits already exist. In April, seven families in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia sued OpenAI. In June, the state of Florida brought an action against OpenAI and chief executive Sam Altman. The design language of the teen product, no endearments, no simulated consciousness, no romantic register, reads as a direct response to the theory of harm those complaints advance.

Parents and teens who both opt in can set Quiet Hours and Study Hours; controls introduced last year already alert parents to moments of acute distress, with eating-disorder notifications promised in the coming weeks. A December Pew Research Center study found nearly a third of American teens use AI chatbots daily, which is the number that makes retrofitting guardrails a legal necessity rather than a product choice.

Sources