YouTube to start determining users’ ages in US using AI

Tengrinews.kz – The American video hosting platform YouTube will introduce an artificial intelligence system to determine the age of users in the United States. This new technology will automatically enable additional protection measures for teenagers.
This was announced by James Beser, Director of Product Management for YouTube Youth, in a statement published on the platform’s official blog.

"Over the next few weeks, we’ll begin to roll out machine learning to a small set of users in the US to estimate their age, so that teens are treated as teens and adults as adults. We’ll closely monitor this before we roll it out more widely," he explained.

According to Beser, the new technology will allow YouTube to determine a user’s age and use this signal to provide age-appropriate content and protections, regardless of the birth date specified in the account.

"We’ve used this approach in other markets for some time, where it is working well. We are now bringing it to the US, and as we make progress we’ll roll it out in other markets. We will closely monitor the user experience, and partner with Creators to ensure that the entire ecosystem benefits from this update," he added.

The AI system will analyze various signals: what videos the user searches for, which categories they watch, and how long ago the account was created. If the system determines that the user is a teenager, age-appropriate protections will be applied automatically.
If the system incorrectly identifies a user as underage, they can confirm their age, for example, with a bank card or ID. Only those recognized or verified as over 18 will be able to view age-restricted content.