OpenAI Backs California's Youth AI Safety Bill, Citing Its Own Data on Why Teens Use ChatGPT

OpenAI has publicly backed California Senate Bill 1119, urging Governor Newsom to sign it and framing the youth AI-safety bill as compatible with, not opposed to, teen access to AI tools. The company says it supports the bill’s age-verification mechanisms, pre-release safety review for products aimed at minors, independent audits, protections against harmful content, parental oversight tools, crisis-support connections, and limits on targeted advertising and data use for users ages 13-17. OpenAI leans on its own usage data to make the case: nearly nine in ten teens who use ChatGPT in a given week are there for learning, information, skill-building, or productivity, not casual chat — and the company frames the bill’s own language, “AI is not social media,” as the correct regulatory tailoring, distinct from social-platform rules built around engagement and attention.

The position isn’t a new one for OpenAI. In July 2026, the company published “Why teens deserve access to safe AI”, arguing that withholding AI from teenagers until adulthood would be comparable to a prior generation being denied internet access or search engines — a framing it now applies directly to SB 1119’s guardrails-not-gates approach. And in August, OpenAI partnered with the American Psychological Association to build clinician- and parent-facing guidance on healthy AI use and overreliance, with APA CEO Arthur Evans arguing “young people are engaging with AI during some of the most consequential years of their development.” Together the three moves read as a coordinated policy position rather than a one-off statement: OpenAI wants regulation that verifies age, audits products, and restricts advertising to minors, while resisting any framing that treats a chatbot the same as a social feed.

For consulting and policy-facing readers, SB 1119 is a bellwether in the absence of federal AI legislation — the compliance bar California sets for age-gating, audits, and data limits on minors is likely to become the template other states borrow from next.