OpenAI announced its support on Tuesday for California Senate Bill 1119, legislation that would establish sweeping safeguards for how young people use artificial intelligence, and urged Governor Gavin Newsom to sign the bill into law.
The endorsement came in a public letter to Newsom authored by Ann O'Leary, OpenAI's vice president of global policy, and a blog post published on the company's site. In it, the company frames SB 1119 as a meaningful middle path: strong protections for users under 18, without cutting teens off from tools it says help them learn, create and prepare for the future. The announcement is the latest in a run of AI policy stories reshaping how governments treat AI's youngest users. For more context on this story, see our ongoing AI industry coverage.
Why OpenAI Is Embracing Regulation — This One, Anyway
OpenAI's positioning rests on a striking statistic from its own post: nearly nine in ten teens who use ChatGPT turn to it for learning, information, skill-building or productivity in a given week. "Teens are the first generation growing up with AI," the company wrote, arguing that opportunity comes with a responsibility to design experiences around young people's distinct developmental needs.
The company is explicit about the federal vacuum motivating its posture. "In the absence of federal action, California has an opportunity to set a strong standard for youth AI safety," the letter to Newsom states. OpenAI says the bill builds on commitments CEO Sam Altman made last year when outlining the company's principles on teen safety, as well as the company's work on the Parents & Kids Safe AI Act.
What SB 1119 Would Require
According to OpenAI's summary of the bill, SB 1119 would require AI companies to:
- Determine a user's age before providing access;
- Identify and address safety risks before making a product available to young people;
- Undergo independent audits of those efforts;
- Protect young people from harmful content, including self-harm and sexually exploitative content, and other high-risk interactions;
- Give parents tools to guide and limit their children's use;
- Connect young people with crisis-support resources when serious safety risks arise; and
- Limit targeted advertising and protect young people's personal information.
For users identified as ages 13 through 17, these protections would apply automatically — not as optional settings teens can switch off.
"AI Is Not Social Media"
One of the more consequential arguments in OpenAI's letter is a distinction lawmakers embedded in the bill itself: AI is not social media. Rather than porting the ad-driven rules built for platforms like Instagram onto chatbots and study tools, SB 1119 tailors protections to preserve what OpenAI calls educational and safety-critical features — including what it describes as responsible uses of ChatGPT's memory feature, which helps safeguards recognize concerning patterns over time.
Critics of blanket age limits have warned that heavy-handed rules could push teens toward less regulated alternatives or block access to genuinely useful learning tools. OpenAI's endorsement suggests the industry's largest player sees SB 1119 as striking the balance it can live with.
ChatGPT for Teens Is Already Live
The bill endorsement is not happening in a vacuum. OpenAI has launched ChatGPT for Teens, a dedicated experience for younger users that the company says automatically places anyone its system estimates is under 18 — or who states their age is between 13 and 17 — into a protected mode. Safeguards there are part of the baseline experience, the company says, not opt-in settings.
That age-estimation detail matters more than it might first appear. Estimates, not verified IDs, determine which experience a user gets, and the company says context from prior conversations — including memory — helps apply safeguards consistently and recognize concerning patterns over time. How well that estimation works in practice, and what happens when teens misstate their age, will shape whether regulators treat industry self-policing as credible.
The teen product also leans into learning: features like Quizzes, Learning Visualizations and Study mode were developed with educators and learning experts to walk students through problems step by step, according to OpenAI. The company positions those tools as evidence that safety requirements and useful products are not in tension — an argument it is effectively making to Newsom as much as to the public.
The Politics in Sacramento
In its letter, OpenAI commends Newsom along with Senator Steve Padilla and Assemblymembers Buffy Wicks and Rebecca Bauer-Kahan for their leadership on the issue. The bill now sits with the governor, and OpenAI's public lobbying campaign — complete with a downloadable letter — makes clear the company wants his signature.
The move also lands as regulators elsewhere tighten the screws. The European Union recently designated ChatGPT a Very Large Online search engine under its Digital Services Act, giving OpenAI until the end of December 2026 to comply with stricter EU rules on minors and transparency. Facing Brussels' top-down designations, OpenAI appears to be calculating that backing a tailored state law in Sacramento is the better way to shape the rules before they are written for it.
Whether Newsom signs — and whether other states follow California's lead — will go a long way toward answering the question Congress has so far left open: who sets the rules for AI's youngest users?
Stay Informed on AI PolicyFollow every development as it happens. Read more AI news on AI Buzz Wire →
