YouTube Introduces AI-Powered Age-Estimation to Safeguard Teen Users
YouTube unveils AI-driven age-estimation technology to protect teens from harmful content.
Key Points
- • YouTube introduces an AI-powered age-estimation system to identify users under 18.
- • Safety measures will include disabling personalized ads and restricting inappropriate content access.
- • Users can correct age misidentification by submitting ID.
- • YouTube is testing the feature in the U.S. before broader rollout.
YouTube plans to roll out a new artificial intelligence-powered age-estimation technology aimed at protecting users under the age of 18 from harmful content. This initiative, announced on July 29, 2025, comes in response to growing concerns about the safety of teen users on digital platforms, particularly on social media.
The age-estimation feature evaluates a user’s age based on various factors such as their video-watching habits, the types of videos they engage with, and the overall duration of their account's existence—rather than solely relying on the birth date provided during account creation. If the system identifies a user as under 18, it will enforce specific safety measures, including disabling personalized advertisements and limiting access to certain types of content that are deemed inappropriate for younger audiences.
James Beser, YouTube's director of product management, emphasized that the technology aims to enhance the platform's existing safety measures while filtering out potentially harmful content for a younger audience. Users who believe they have been misidentified can challenge the system by submitting a form of identification to correct their age classification. The major aim is to ensure that only users confirmed or inferred to be over 18 gain access to age-restricted videos.
This move follows recent data indicating that YouTube remains the most popular social media platform among teens, with a staggering 90% of users aged 13 to 17 actively engaged on the site, a significant rate in comparison to 63% for TikTok. YouTube CEO Neal Mohan originally announced this age-detection technology back in February, which builds upon previously established safety features intended for parental oversight, such as supervised accounts.
Moreover, YouTube's AI has been previously employed to identify and remove harmful content from its platform. However, during recent changes in policy, there has been a notable shift toward prioritizing user freedom of expression over stringent content safety measures. YouTube plans to test the age-detection tool among a small cohort of users in the U.S. shortly, with a broader rollout expected depending on the initial results, as successful tests have already been conducted in other international markets.