OpenAI targets families with dedicated product manager for household AI
OpenAI is hiring a product manager focused on families, caregivers, and seniors, as ChatGPT's user base ages and parents increasingly use the platform.
More than three years after ChatGPT brought generative AI into the mainstream, OpenAI is broadening its focus from individual users to families. The company is seeking a dedicated product manager in San Francisco to build experiences for families, caregivers, and older adults across its products. The role requires experience in building products for parents and families, as well as other trust-sensitive consumer experiences, according to the job posting.
The hiring comes as ChatGPT’s audience continues to broaden beyond younger users. Sensor Tower estimates, shared exclusively with TechCrunch, show that the share of ChatGPT users aged 35 and older globally rose to 31% in Q2 from 26% a year earlier, while the share of users aged 18 to 24 fell to 29% from 34%. In the U.S., nearly one in four smartphone users who are parents used ChatGPT during the quarter, up from 16% a year earlier.
Ben Bajarin, CEO of technology consultancy Creative Strategies, said the product role signals that OpenAI is beginning to view its products less as tools for individual productivity and more as technology designed for households. “This is similar to the path Google, Apple, and Meta eventually followed as their platforms became embedded in everyday life, but AI raises the stakes because the assistant is not just mediating content or devices,” he told TechCrunch.
The shift also brings new trust and safety challenges. Stephen Balkam, CEO of the Family Online Safety Institute, said the hiring reflects both OpenAI’s maturation and a growing recognition that AI products used by children and teenagers require different safeguards than those for adults. “I see this as safety by redesign—taking the initial product that wasn't really designed with kids in mind and adapting it,” he said.
His comments coincide with new research from the institute, which found that parents underestimate how often their children use generative AI. While 27% of U.S. parents said their child had used generative AI in the past week, 38% of children reported doing so themselves, according to a survey of over 4,000 families in the U.S. and Australia.
OpenAI has faced multiple lawsuits from parents alleging ChatGPT contributed to harm, including in cases involving suicide. In response, the company introduced several safety measures over the past year: parental controls for teen accounts, routing sensitive conversations to reasoning models designed to better handle signs of distress, and an optional “Trusted Contact” feature that can alert a family member or caregiver in potential self-harm situations.
Sensor Tower data also shows that among U.S. smartphone users who are parents, Gemini had the widest reach at 32% in Q2, followed by ChatGPT at 24%, Claude at 4%, and Copilot at 2%. While ChatGPT remains underpenetrated among older users, it is adding them faster than rivals: the share of users aged 45 and above rose three percentage points year-over-year, compared with two points for Copilot and declines for Claude and Gemini.
For Bajarin, OpenAI’s decision to hire a product manager focused on families indicates where consumer AI is headed. As AI becomes a technology shared across generations, he expects companies to roll out family plans, child and teen profiles, caregiver tools, shared household memory, AI tutoring, and stronger safety controls.
