More than three years after the launch of ChatGPT catapulted generative AI into the mainstream, OpenAI is expanding its focus beyond individual users to include families.
OpenAI is hiring a dedicated product manager in San Francisco to build experiences for families, caregivers, and seniors across its products. The role requires experience building products for parents and families and other trust-sensitive consumer experiences, according to the job posting.
The hiring comes as ChatGPT’s audience continues to expand beyond younger users. Globally, the percentage of ChatGPT users aged 35 and older increased to 31% in the second quarter from 26% a year earlier, while the percentage of users aged 18 to 24 decreased from 34% to 29%, according to Sensor Tower estimates shared exclusively with TechCrunch. In the U.S., the company estimates that nearly one in four smartphone users who are parents used ChatGPT during the quarter. This is an increase from 16% in the same period last year.
OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment on the job posting.
The dedicated family-focused product role is a sign that OpenAI is starting to think of its products less as tools for personal productivity and more as technology designed for the home, said Ben Bajarin, CEO of technology consulting firm Creative Strategies.
“This is similar to the path that Google, Apple and Meta eventually followed as their platforms became embedded in our daily lives, but AI raises the stakes because assistants are not simply mediating content or devices,” he told TechCrunch.
These changes also create new trust and safety issues. Stephen Balkam, CEO of the Family Online Safety Institute, said the hiring reflects the maturity of OpenAI and the growing recognition that AI products used by children and teens require different safeguards than those for adults.
“I think of this as safety by redesign,” Balkam told TechCrunch. “You take the initial product or service that comes out and doesn’t really have children in mind. So this is a very necessary response and response.”
The comments come as new research released this week by the Family Online Safety Institute found that parents are underestimating the frequency with which their children use generative AI. A survey of more than 4,000 families in the U.S. and Australia found that 27% of U.S. parents said their children had used generative AI in the past week, while 38% of children said they did so themselves.
Balkam told TechCrunch that AI companies need to build products for younger users differently, with stronger content controls, age-appropriate experiences, parental supervision, and notifications to let users know they’re interacting with an AI rather than a human.
The hiring also comes amid increasing scrutiny of how AI companies protect young users. OpenAI has faced several lawsuits from parents who claim ChatGPT contributed to harm suffered by their children, including cases involving suicide.
In response to these concerns, OpenAI has introduced a series of safety measures over the past year, including parental controls for youth accounts, routing sensitive conversations to an inference model designed to better handle signs of distress, and most recently a “Trusted Contacts” optional feature that can alert family or caregivers if self-harm is possible.
Balkam said there is an opportunity for AI companies to avoid the mistakes made by social media platforms. Social media platforms treated children like adults for years before adding stronger protections amid mounting public pressure and regulatory scrutiny.
The hiring also aligns with OpenAI’s broader efforts for families. At a recent workshop hosted with the San Antonio Spurs Community Impact organization and the Positive Coaching Alliance, the company said it aimed to explore the role of AI in learning, coaching and youth engagement.
That said, OpenAI’s audience is changing in some distinct ways, but the demographic shift isn’t unique to ChatGPT.
Sensor Tower estimates that users ages 25 to 34 account for 40% of global app users for Anthropic’s Claude and Google Gemini. This corresponds to 33% for Microsoft Copilot, as does ChatGPT. However, Copilot is older, with 20% of its users over 45, compared to Claude’s 14%, Gemini’s 12%, and ChatGPT’s 11%.
ChatGPT has relatively low penetration among existing users, but is adding users faster than its competitors. According to Sensor Tower, the proportion of users aged 45 or older in the second quarter increased by 3 percentage points compared to the same period last year, while Copilot increased by 2 percentage points and Claude and Gemini decreased.
Among US smartphone users who are parents, Gemini had the widest reach at 32% in the second quarter, followed by ChatGPT at 24%, Claude at 4%, and Copilot at 2%.
For Bajarin, OpenAI’s decision to hire a family-focused product manager is indicative of where consumer AI is headed. As AI becomes a technology shared across generations, he expects companies to roll out family planning, child and youth profiles, caregiver tools, shared family memories, AI tutoring and stronger safety controls.
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