OpenAI is hiring a dedicated product manager in San Francisco to build experiences for families, caregivers, and older adults across its products. This move signals a strategic shift towards household adoption as ChatGPT's user base broadens beyond younger demographics.
TL;DR
- OpenAI is hiring a product manager to develop family-focused features for ChatGPT.
- The share of ChatGPT users aged 35 and older globally rose to 31% in Q2, up from 26% a year earlier.
- This move reflects a broader industry trend towards designing AI products with stronger safety controls for younger users.
What happened
OpenAI is hiring a dedicated product manager in San Francisco to build experiences for families, caregivers, and older adults across its products. The role calls for experience building products for parents and families, and other trust-sensitive consumer experiences, according to the job posting.
According to Sensor Tower estimates shared exclusively with TechCrunch, the share of ChatGPT users aged 35 and older globally rose to 31% in Q2 from 26% a year earlier, while the share of users aged 18 to 24 fell to 29% from 34%. In the U.S., nearly one in four smartphone users who are parents used ChatGPT during the quarter, up from 16% a year earlier, the firm estimates.
Why it matters
This hiring signals that OpenAI is beginning to think about its products less as tools for individual productivity and more as technology designed for households. Ben Bajarin, chief executive of technology consultancy Creative Strategies, said this shift brings new trust and safety challenges.
Stephen Balkam, chief executive of the Family Online Safety Institute, said the hiring reflects both the maturation of OpenAI and a growing recognition that AI products used by children and teenagers require different safeguards than those designed for adults. He emphasized the need for stronger content controls, age-appropriate experiences, parental oversight, and reminders to inform users that they are interacting with an AI.
The move aligns with OpenAI's broader efforts around families, including a recent workshop organized with the San Antonio Spurs Community Impact organization and the Positive Coaching Alliance, aimed at exploring AI's role in learning, coaching, and youth engagement.
Key facts
- OpenAI is hiring a dedicated product manager to build experiences for families, caregivers, and older adults across its products.
- The share of ChatGPT users aged 35 and older globally rose to 31% in Q2 from 26% a year earlier.
- In the U.S., nearly one in four smartphone users who are parents used ChatGPT during the quarter, up from 16% a year earlier.
- OpenAI has introduced safety measures over the past year, including parental controls for teen accounts and a 'Trusted Contact' feature.
- Sensor Tower estimates that users aged 25 to 34 account for 40% of the global app audiences for Anthropic's Claude and Google's Gemini, matching ChatGPT.
- Among U.S. smartphone users who are parents, Gemini had the widest reach at 32% in Q2, followed by ChatGPT at 24%, Claude at 4%, and Copilot at 2%.
- The share of users aged 45 and above rose three percentage points year-over-year in the second quarter for ChatGPT, compared with a two-point increase for Copilot and declines for Claude and Gemini.
Context
This move reflects a broader industry trend towards designing AI products with stronger safety controls for younger users. AI companies have an opportunity to avoid the mistakes made by social media platforms, which for years treated children much like adults before adding stronger safeguards amid mounting public pressure and regulatory scrutiny.
The demographic shift is not unique to ChatGPT, though OpenAI's audience is changing in some distinct ways. While ChatGPT remains relatively underpenetrated among older users, it is adding them faster than its rivals.
