YouTube expands AI age verification: flagged under-18s must accept restrictions or verify with ID, credit card, or selfie. New teen safeguards and safer feeds.
© E. Vartanyan
YouTube has started rolling out its artificial intelligence–driven age verification system to a new wave of users. The change surfaced in reports from Reddit, where people said they began seeing prompts to confirm their age on their accounts.
Now, if the system infers that a user may be under 18, they are offered two choices: accept age-based restrictions or verify adulthood using an official ID, a credit card, or a selfie. It’s a stark fork in the road that aims to keep younger audiences away from mature content without shutting the door on adults.
Google first announced the measure in July 2025, with broader deployment beginning in September. The underlying algorithms look at signals such as an account’s age, activity, and other data points to decide whether a user appears to meet the age requirement.
For those who are in fact under 18, YouTube is imposing a set of safeguards: age-restricted videos are blocked, only non-personalized ads are shown, and Digital Wellbeing features—break and bedtime reminders—are enabled by default. Younger users will also see privacy prompts more frequently when uploading videos or posting comments, nudging them to think twice before sharing.
YouTube will also dial back recommendations for content that could be undesirable when watched repeatedly, set new uploads to private by default, and limit the ability to monetize through gifts in vertical live streams.
Taken together, the move signals a careful push: more protection for teens, less personalization that could lead them down questionable rabbit holes, and a gentle but steady pressure on adults to verify their age when the system has doubts.