AI companies are losing billions of dollars, and investors will likely have to wait for years to see a return — if ever.
In the scramble for profitability, OpenAI opened the door to adult chats, announcing at its DevDay 2025 conference earlier this month that it would soon allow “mature apps.”
“Support for mature (18+) experiences will arrive once appropriate age verification and controls are in place,” the company’s developer guidelines read.
“As part of our ‘treat adult users like adults’ principle, we will allow even more, like erotica for verified adults,” Altman tweeted on Tuesday, confirming once and for all that the ChatGPT maker would double down on sexbots.
It’s a remarkable change in the billionaire’s tune. Just two months ago, Altman boasted in an interview with YouTuber and science communicator Cleo Abram that the company hadn’t “put a sexbot avatar in ChatGPT yet.”
The broadside was seemingly aimed at competitor Musk, whose AI startup xAI introduced a lingerie- and corset-wearing anime girl avatar in July — including a “full gooner mode.”
“That does seem like it would get time spent,” Abram replied.
“Apparently, it does,” Altman added.
Apart from serving as a handy reminder that we should never take tech executives at their word — both Altman and Musk are well known for chronically overpromising and underdelivering — the about-face also highlights how even some of the biggest players in the AI space are leaving no stones unturned in an effort to boost engagement numbers.
OpenAI’s latest change in policy shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. The earliest days of modern, natural language model-based chatbots are filled with avatars designed to have sexually-charged conversations. Erotic roleplay has played a key role in the early dissemination of the tech.
How OpenAI will cope with the potential of exploitation and spread of abusive material remains to be seen. Last month, twelve current and former xAI workers told Business Insider that they regularly encountered sexually explicit material, including AI-generated material involving the sexual abuse of children.
Alongside “treating adult users like adults,” OpenAI rolled out what it says is an age-appropriate ChatGPT experience for users under the age of 18, while also promising to come up with tech that determines a user’s age based on how they behave and interact with the chatbot.
How effective these guardrails will be remains anybody’s guess. We’ve already seen other AI companies struggling to successfully implement age-based restrictions. Case in point, embattled startup Character.AI attempted to roll out parental controls, which turned out to be comically easy for underage users to bypass.
The use of the tech by children and teens in particular has become a major talking point as of late, with Republican lawmaker Josh Hawley circulating a draft bill this week that would ban AI companions for minors. The move was inspired by Congressional hearings involving parents whose children harmed themselves and even took their own lives after talking to AI chatbots.
It’s not hard to see OpenAI’s motivation for turning up the sexually charged content dial. As the industry continues to grapple with astronomical losses — despite soaring valuations — AI companies are keeping many ways of monetizing the tech on the table.
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The post Two Months Ago, Sam Altman Was Boasting That OpenAI Didn’t Have to Do Sexbots. Now It’s Doing Sexbots appeared first on Futurism.
