OpenAI Reportedly Shelves ChatGPT’s Adult Mode Plans Indefinitely

The other hurdles are reportedly being raised by OpenAI’s Adult Mode for ChatGPT feature, which is said to be another challenge. This is ‘the ability to allow users to have explicit conversations of a sexual nature with the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, which will be put on hold indefinitely as per the report. Several employees and investors raised concerns about the feature, which was later said to be the decision after several staff members and investor asked whether it would make sense for the small upside to have an ethical debate that might lead to its eventual success. The feature was already twice delayed, sadly, by .

Adult Mode in ChatGPT Reportedly Put on Hold

The San Francisco-based AI giant has ‘deadly delayed Adult Mode in ChatGPT for the sake of its core products, specifically Codex and expansion of chatbots to focus on Core products (see CodeX) according to a Financial Times report. Another reason for the latest delay is that a sexualised AI will have on the larger society, one of its factors also concerns about how it affects the wider world.

It cited anonymous people familiar with the subject, saying that OpenAI is also having internal discussions about whether the project should be scrapped entirely. In October 2025, Adult Mode was first announced; however, the company delayed it to study how sexual chats with an AI chatbot affect people. However, it later acknowledged that “there was no empirical data on the same”.

An earlier month, a second delay followed when ‘OpenAI is shifting focus to other higher-priority projects’ according to. The decision was also influenced by concerns of employees and investors, according to the FT report now. While the company was aiming for increased engagement and usage growth, staff said they were “pronounced ethically and reputationally vulnerable” to such an aspect of it.

One of the most important concerns seems to be emotional dependence, . Assuming an AI chatbot flirts with a user and engages in romantic conversations (likely, interactions with the user), there is also ‘high probability that the person will develop an emotional connection to his user which can lead to unhealthy attachments. Two investors have reportedly highlighted these risks and described them as the “very small upside” for the business, which is said to be relatively low.

A technical challenge is another problem OpenAI faces, a difficult one. It has long been training the AI giant to avoid such conversations, and it is ‘hard-to train its AI models for making explicit content’ according to the report. The concern also appears to be a problem with training data; such datasets may contain unethical or illegal content, which could remove more expensive and resource-intensive information.

It was also scheduled to be released with the company’s age verification system when Adult Mode first became available. However, the report says OpenAI’s age verification system is now prone to an error rate of 10 percent at this time. This may lead to ChatGPT giving access for the explicit feature to minors, an error OpenAI will be wary of making after being sued multiple times.