OpenAI hires for family-focused ChatGPT products

OpenAI is putting more product attention on families as ChatGPT becomes a tool used around the house, not just by individual workers or students. For investors tracking consumer AI, the shift points to a bigger market opportunity and a tougher safety problem: products used by parents, teens, caregivers and older adults need more controls than a general chatbot.

The company is hiring a product manager in San Francisco to build experiences for families, caregivers and older adults across its products, according to an OpenAI job listing. The posting calls for experience with products for parents and families, as well as consumer services where trust and safety are central.

OpenAI did not respond to TechCrunch requests for comment on the role.

The job opening comes as ChatGPT’s user base gets older. Sensor Tower estimates shared with TechCrunch show that users aged 35 and above made up 31% of ChatGPT’s global audience in the second quarter, up from 26% a year earlier. Over the same period, users aged 18 to 24 fell to 29% from 34%.

In the U.S., Sensor Tower estimates that nearly one in four smartphone users who are parents used ChatGPT during the quarter. That was up from 16% a year earlier.

Why family products are different

Generative AI, meaning software that creates text, images or other content from prompts, changes the usual consumer-tech playbook because the product can respond conversationally and remember context. A family version of that product can raise questions about age controls, shared access, parental oversight and what happens when a user discusses distress or self-harm.

Ben Bajarin, chief executive of technology consultancy Creative Strategies, told TechCrunch that the dedicated family role suggests OpenAI is starting to treat its tools as household technology rather than individual productivity software. He compared the shift to the paths taken by Google, Apple and Meta as their platforms became part of everyday life, while noting that AI adds more complexity because the assistant does more than organize content or devices.

Stephen Balkam, chief executive of the Family Online Safety Institute, told TechCrunch the move reflects OpenAI’s maturation and a recognition that products used by children and teenagers require different safeguards from products aimed at adults. He described the approach as “safety by redesign,” meaning a product first built for a broad audience gets reworked with younger users in mind.

The Family Online Safety Institute also published research this week finding that parents may be undercounting their children’s AI use. In a survey of more than 4,000 families in the U.S. and Australia, 27% of U.S. parents said their child had used generative AI in the past week, while 38% of children said they had done so.

Safety pressure is rising

OpenAI has faced lawsuits from parents alleging ChatGPT played a role in harm suffered by their children, including cases involving suicide, according to reports cited by TechCrunch. The company has added safety measures over the past year, including parental controls for teen accounts, routing sensitive conversations to reasoning models designed to better handle signs of distress, and an optional Trusted Contact feature that can alert a family member or caregiver in possible self-harm cases.

Balkam told TechCrunch that AI companies should build stronger content controls, age-appropriate experiences, parental oversight and reminders that users are speaking with AI, not a human.

ChatGPT is not the only major AI app reaching family users. Sensor Tower estimates that among U.S. smartphone users who are parents, Google’s Gemini had 32% reach in the second quarter, followed by ChatGPT at 24%, Anthropic’s Claude at 4% and Microsoft Copilot at 2%.

Sensor Tower’s data also suggests ChatGPT is gaining older users faster than several rivals. The share of ChatGPT users aged 45 and above rose three percentage points from a year earlier in the second quarter, compared with a two-point increase for Copilot and declines for Claude and Gemini.

Bajarin told TechCrunch that consumer AI may move toward family plans, child and teen profiles, caregiver tools, shared household memory, AI tutoring and stronger safety controls as usage spreads across generations.

This story draws on original reporting from TechCrunch.