OpenAI today announced plans to equip ChatGPT with new safety features that will enable it to respond in a more helpful manner if a user experiences mental or emotional distress.

The first upcoming update will focus on the router component of GPT-5, the artificial intelligence system that powers ChatGPT. The router analyzes each user prompt and automatically determines which of OpenAI’s large language models is best equipped to process it. Customers can also manually specify the LLM that should be used.

OpenAI will release an upgraded version of the router that can detect when a user experiences acute distress and send prompts to a reasoning-optimized LLM. Such LLMs provide “more helpful and beneficial responses” than the other models that power ChatGPT, OpenAI staffers wrote in a blog post. The router will pick a reasoning-optimized LLM even if the user originally picked a less advanced algorithm.

The company plans to release the upgraded router “soon.” Additionally, it will introduce parental controls designed to provide stronger content guardrails for teens. The latter update is set to roll out within the next month. 

Parents will be able to link their ChatGPT accounts with those of their teens via a verification email. From there, parents will gain the ability to set age-appropriate model behavior rules and disable certain ChatGPT features such as the chat history. Additionally, OpenAI plans to generate alerts about potentially harmful prompts.

ChatGPT will send “notifications when the system detects their teen is in a moment of acute distress,” OpenAI explained. “Expert input will guide this feature to support trust between parents and teens.”

OpenAI plans to source that expert input from a council of youth development, mental health and human-computer interaction specialists. The AI provider said today that those specialists will help it develop future upgrades to ChatGPT’s parental controls.

According to OpenAI, the council will collaborate with a second group of experts dubbed the Global Physician Network. It comprises more than 250 medical professionals including psychiatrists, pediatricians and general practitioners. OpenAI has already worked with those physicians on multiple research initiatives.

“Their input directly informs our safety research, model training, and other interventions, helping us to quickly engage the right specialists when needed,” OpenAI’s staffers wrote. ‘We are adding even more clinicians and researchers to our network, including those with deep expertise in areas like eating disorders, substance use, and adolescent health.”

The initiatives announced today are part of a broader AI safety push that OpenAI first detailed last month. At the time, the LLM developer stated that its researchers will also make ChatGPT better at detecting signs of mental and emotional distress in long chat sessions. Additionally, OpenAI will enhance the guardrails it uses to block potentially harmful prompt responses.

Image: OpenAI