OpenAI has pledged $2 million to support research into AI and children’s safety, announcing the commitment at the Paris Peace Forum alongside its signature on the Charter of Engagement for Safer AI for Children. The company said the funding will back a coordinated research programme run under the Coalition for Children’s Rights and Protection in the Age of AI and will focus on developing shared measurement tools that researchers can use to assess both risks and opportunities for young people.
According to OpenAI, the contribution is intended to enable shared measurement efforts that produce tools and methodologies for the research community. Those resources are designed to generate common evidence about how AI systems affect children, helping researchers, policymakers and product teams to evaluate harms and benefits in a consistent way. The company framed the work as a contribution to a public evidence base that can guide safer product design and more informed policy decisions.
The commitment is structured under the charter referenced at the Paris forum, which outlines common principles for age-appropriate AI and specifies safeguards to protect the independence of the research it supports. OpenAI emphasized that research teams will retain control over their conclusions and that the programme requires public disclosure of findings, including negative or inconclusive results. The company described this transparency requirement as essential to building a robust academic and policy dialogue about youth-focused AI safety issues.
OpenAI said the supported work will concentrate on creating shared tools and measurement approaches to help researchers better understand how AI affects children. By promoting standardized tools, the initiative aims to reduce fragmentation in methods and make it easier to compare and aggregate findings across studies. OpenAI framed these tools as resources that can inform the development of safer products and supply policymakers with empirical evidence about potential harms and benefits.
The announcement situates the funding within a broader push by OpenAI for international standards and coordinated action on youth AI safety. The company reiterated its call for collaboration among governments, researchers, civil society and industry to translate evidence into practical safeguards. In its statement, OpenAI set out elements it believes should be included in comprehensive youth AI safety legislation: age-appropriate safeguards by default, tools and supports for parents, routine risk assessments and mitigation, and meaningful accountability mechanisms, while preserving access to AI tools for learning and creativity.
OpenAI also said it looks forward to engaging with European policymakers as the EU Kids Act develops and with international partners to advance protections and opportunities for young people. The company presents the funding as a step toward producing the empirical foundation needed to balance the potential benefits of AI for young people with efforts to mitigate risks to their safety and development. It described the initiative as a private-sector contribution to coordinated research and policy development rather than a regulatory action.
The charter’s commitments to independent analysis and public disclosure are central to how the programme is intended to operate. By requiring publication of all results, including null or negative findings, the organisers aim to avoid publication bias and to accelerate the accumulation of evidence that can inform both product teams and regulators. OpenAI said these publication commitments are aimed at preserving researcher independence and ensuring that the research can serve as a credible input to policymaking.
While the funding amount—$2 million—is modest relative to the scale of work many advocates say is needed, OpenAI and the coalition frame the contribution as a practical step to foster shared tools and measurement standards. The company characterized the pledge as part of a longer-term effort to support research infrastructure that can yield reproducible, public evidence about youth-related AI impacts. By focusing on shared measurement and transparency, the initiative seeks to make it easier for diverse stakeholders to draw on common data when crafting safeguards.
OpenAI’s public statement underscores that the initiative is intended to be collaborative and evidence-driven. The company is positioning the research programme and its charter commitments as a mechanism to help translate scientific findings into actionable guidance for product development and regulation. As the EU and other jurisdictions consider youth-specific AI rules, the coalition-led research network is presented as a resource to inform those debates with shared, openly published evidence.
In sum, OpenAI’s $2 million pledge and its endorsement of the Charter of Engagement for Safer AI for Children signal a private-sector investment in coordinated research on AI and children’s safety. The success of the effort will depend on the uptake of the shared tools, the independence and rigor of participating research teams, and whether the published evidence influences product practices and policy outcomes.
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