YouTube will start using machine learning to determine whether viewers should be on a teen account. The company said it plans to start using this AI application on a subset of US users in the coming weeks for a trial before rolling it out to the rest of the market. The tool will assess user behaviors including the types of videos being searched for, the categories of videos watched and how long the account has existed. When an account is deemed by machine learning to belong to a teen, YouTube will disable personalized advertising, activate digital wellbeing tools and add other safeguards for its younger users.
Since introducing supervised teen accounts in 2021, YouTube has continued to add protections aimed at its younger users. The company noted that it has been using this machine learning approach "in other markets for some time, where it is working well."