OpenAI is expanding ChatGPT for Teens with a set of new features: a College Planner, enhanced study tools such as flashcards and quiz creation, and a teen advisory program. The updates aim to make college preparation and learning support more accessible to young people, alongside guidance from counselors and families.
Early usage data and teen usage patterns
ChatGPT serves approximately 1.2 billion users globally, and the company says building tools for young people across diverse backgrounds is a priority. Since the rollout of ChatGPT for Teens, teens who had access sent on average about 2.7 million more learning-related messages than those who did not yet have the experience.
Once enrolled, teens use the platform’s learning tools at scale. The most selected conversation-starter prompts are “ask questions to develop my ideas,” “give feedback on my draft,” and “help me check my evidence.” In one week, nearly 1.2 million teens used Learning Visualizations to better understand math and science concepts, and more than 180,000 used Study Mode for step-by-step learning support.
ChatGPT for Teens includes built-in reminders to encourage breaks. On average, teens spend under 15 minutes per day on ChatGPT. Fewer than 2% of teens spend more than three consecutive hours on ChatGPT; in nearly half of teen conversations with a break reminder, teens took a break or ended the conversation within five minutes. These patterns are well below the publicly reported average of 5 hours for teen social media usage and suggest a different kind of interaction: ChatGPT is positioned as a tool for learning, building, and creativity rather than passive scrolling. Among teen sessions longer than three consecutive hours, over 80% contained at least one learning-related prompt.
College Planner: a planner for the admissions process
Hundreds of thousands of U.S. teens use ChatGPT weekly to plan for college—tracking deadlines, researching schools and understanding financial aid. To support that activity, OpenAI will add College Planner to ChatGPT for Teens. The feature is designed to gather application requirements, deadlines, tasks and financial-aid steps for the schools on a student’s list into a single plan.
The initial U.S. experience is being designed for high-school students in grades 10–12 who plan to attend a four-year college. OpenAI plans to expand College Planner to students in more countries and to add support for two-year colleges, technical colleges, trade schools and other pathways over time.
Students applying to multiple schools can return to the plan to update progress, use a timeline to plan ahead and see outstanding tasks. They can also ask ChatGPT questions about what a requirement means or how to get started. The aim is to save students and families time and reduce stress during the application process.
College Planner also helps students understand how to pay for college: it can clarify financial-aid requirements, track each school’s aid deadlines, and surface scholarships and fee-waiver opportunities.
Partnership with College Advising Corps and an AI fellowship
OpenAI is supporting College Advising Corps, a nonprofit that places recent college graduates as advisers in under-resourced high schools, to help students navigate higher-education pathways. OpenAI’s contribution will help the organization expand into new states and create an AI fellowship program. Through the fellowship, advisers in participating states will test and share practical ways to use AI to help students manage application and enrollment tasks while offering guidance on choices and next steps.
Teen advisory council and research partnership
As part of its commitment to improving ChatGPT for Teens, OpenAI will support Boston Children’s Hospital’s Digital Wellness Lab and its independent Student Advisory Council for three years to learn directly from young people about how AI fits into their lives.
For the 2026–27 school year, the Lab will bring together approximately 22 students across two tracks: about 12 students ages 14–18 working on digital wellbeing projects in their communities, and about 10 students ages 16–20 focused on building AI chatbots and emerging technology. These students will collaborate with researchers and clinicians on digital wellbeing and AI projects. Students in the AI track will test tools and recommend changes based on how they use AI for learning and in their personal lives. Feedback is expected on teen safety defaults, parental controls and notifications, and AI literacy.
The advisory board is intended to give teens a direct voice in product and model decisions and to ensure their recommendations are considered early in development, with follow-up reporting on what changes are made and why.
Easier note capture, flashcards and quizzes
Students reported that photographing and uploading notes could take hours. To streamline that process, OpenAI is introducing continuous multi-photo capture so students can photograph multiple pages of notes and automatically combine them into a single PDF ready to upload to ChatGPT. This feature is available on iOS and work is underway to bring it to Android.
Flashcards are being added to help teens practice material: a student can upload class notes or select a topic and ChatGPT will convert the material into review cards. Students can mark known cards, return to missed ones, shuffle the deck for another round, and saved decks appear in a teen’s Library. Users can also ask ChatGPT to pull up flashcards and create a scheduled task to practice them.
Quiz creation has been simplified as well: students can upload notes to generate interactive quizzes, and ChatGPT is better at recognizing when a user wants a quiz and creating one directly in chat.
Next steps
OpenAI says it will continue learning from teens, families and educators, monitor how protections work in practice, and share findings as ChatGPT for Teens evolves.
