OpenAI published an update on ChatGPT for Teens, the default experience for accounts identified as under 18. The post reports early usage patterns, announces College Planner for US students, adds flashcards and quiz creation, and describes partnerships with College Advising Corps and Boston Children’s Hospital’s Digital Wellness Lab.

Since rollout, teens with access sent about 2.7 million more learning-related messages on average than teens without access. The most-selected conversation starter prompts were “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 for math and science concepts, and more than 180,000 used Study Mode for step-by-step support. On break reminders, teens average under 15 minutes per day on ChatGPT; less than 2% spend more than three consecutive hours, and in almost half of conversations with a break reminder, teens took a break or ended the conversation within five minutes. OpenAI contrasts this with publicly reported teen social media usage of around 5 hours per day, and notes that over 80% of sessions longer than three consecutive hours included at least one learning-related prompt. These early signs are described as encouraging, with continued evaluation planned.

For college preparation, OpenAI says hundreds of thousands of US teens use ChatGPT each week to plan applications, track deadlines, research schools, and understand financial aid. College Planner, coming soon to ChatGPT for Teens, will bring application requirements, deadlines, tasks, and financial-aid steps for schools on a student’s list into one plan. Students can update progress, use the timeline, and ask ChatGPT questions about requirements. The initial US experience is designed for high-school students in grades 10–12 planning to attend a four-year college, with plans to expand to other countries and to two-year colleges, technical colleges, and trade schools. College Planner also helps students understand financial aid requirements, track aid deadlines, and explore scholarships and fee waivers.

OpenAI is also supporting College Advising Corps, a nonprofit that places recent college graduates as advisers in under-resourced high schools. The contribution will help the organization expand into new states and create an AI fellowship program, where advisers test and share practical ways to use AI to help students navigate college. OpenAI frames AI as useful for managing application and enrollment tasks while advisers help students consider options and make decisions.

A second partnership supports Boston Children’s Hospital’s Digital Wellness Lab and its independent Student Advisory Council over three years. For the 2026–27 school year, the Lab will bring together about 22 students: roughly 12 students ages 14–18 working on digital wellbeing projects and about 10 students ages 16–20 focused on building AI chatbots and emerging technology. Students will work alongside researchers and clinicians, test tools, and recommend changes based on how they use AI in learning and personal life. OpenAI expects to seek feedback on teen safety defaults, parental controls, notifications, and AI literacy, and aims to bring recommendations into product and model decisions early and report back on changes.

Finally, the update introduces study tools. Continuous multi-photo capture lets students photograph multiple pages of notes and combine them into a single PDF for upload; this is available on iOS, with Android planned. Flashcards can be generated from class notes or a chosen topic, marked as known, revisited, shuffled, and saved in a teen’s Library, with options to practice on a schedule. Quiz creation is also easier: students can upload notes to turn them into interactive quizzes, and ChatGPT now better recognizes when a quiz is wanted and creates one directly in chat.