Sam Altman says ChatGPT to offer age-restricted erotica for verified adults

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman

OpenAI chief Sam Altman revealed on X that ChatGPT will introduce age-restricted access for mature material before the end of the year, saying the company is adopting a new guideline focused on "treating adult users like adults." According to Altman, a December rollout will bring "erotica for verified adults", alongside stronger age-verification tools.

He explained that earlier versions of the chatbot were limited on purpose: "pretty restrictive to make sure we were being careful with mental health issues," he posted. However, he said "now that we have been able to mitigate the serious mental health issues and have new tools, we are going to be able to safely relax the restrictions in most cases."

According to Business Insider, this isn’t Altman’s first time commenting on the subject. In a conversation a couple of months ago with Cleo Abram, he noted there were choices that could "juice growth and revenue" but don’t align with the company’s direction. When pressed for an example, he replied, "We haven't put a sex-bot avatar in ChatGPT yet." Abram joked that such a move "does seem like it would get time spent," and Altman answered, "Apparently it does."

We made ChatGPT pretty restrictive to make sure we were being careful with mental health issues. We realize this made it less useful/enjoyable to many users who had no mental health problems, but given the seriousness of the issue we wanted to get this right.

Now that we have…

— Sam Altman (@sama) October 14, 2025

Some rivals are already experimenting with adult-oriented AI features. Elon Musk's xAI released Ani earlier this year, described as a lingerie-clad anime companion, and one user even said he fell in love with Ani. The company followed up with Grok Imagine, a video model that includes a "spicy" mode for undressing images, the report said.

Although ChatGPT has long avoided explicit topics, many people already use it for emotional and personal discussions online, from writing heartfelt messages to partners to breaking down conversations. In fact, OpenAI observed in a report shared in September that about 1.9% of messages to ChatGPT dealt with "relationships and personal reflections," the report said.