YouTube Brings AI-Powered Age Estimation to Enable Features to Protect Teens

YouTube is rolling out a brand new characteristic to customers within the US that depends on machine studying to estimate their age, with out offering any private data. The Alphabet-owned firm says it’s bringing the identical expertise utilized in different areas to show content material that’s acceptable for youthful customers on the platform, whereas disabling options like personalised promoting. The characteristic is designed to work even when youthful customers have supplied an incorrect birthday to bypass the platform’s age-based protections.

YouTube Will Limit Recommendations After Identifying Teen Users 

In a weblog publish detailing the characteristic that’s rolling out to “a small set of users in the US”, the corporate says that the age estimation characteristic is designed to infer the age of a YouTube consumer. It depends on synthetic intelligence (AI), and customers will not have to share any non-public particulars because the platform makes use of alerts to estimate their ages.

Once YouTube has recognized an account being utilized by a young person, it can mechanically activate the platform’s digital wellbeing options, that are designed to forestall extreme use. “Repetitive views” of content material associated to weight and bodily look may even be curtailed, and YouTube will forestall some forms of movies from showing of their suggestions. Personalised advertisements may even be disabled on youngsters’ accounts.

AI-powered methods may make errors whereas classifying accounts primarily based on alerts, and YouTube says that it’s going to supply customers a approach to confirm their age. Adults who’ve been incorrectly recognized as teenagers can present the platform with a authorities ID card, or a bank card to re-classify their account as an grownup. Once it’s resolved, YouTube will re-enable entry to restricted movies and quick movies.

The new age estimation functionality comes months after YouTube CEO Neal Mohan first introduced the characteristic was coming to customers in February. The firm’s earlier efforts at limiting content material out there to youthful customers embody supervised accounts and content material restrictions that have been rolled out in September 2024. YouTube says it can additionally roll out the identical characteristic to different markets sooner or later.