AI Chatbot Age Requirements for K-12 Students (2026 Table)

Current status: Last reviewed September 7, 2026. Every row cites the vendor's own terms, policy, or admin documentation as read on that date. Vendors change these terms without notice; verify the live page before an approval decision. This is not legal advice.

The first question in any AI tool approval is not what the tool does. It is whether the vendor allows this student to use it at all. Consumer AI products set their own age floors in their terms of use, and a district cannot lower a floor by creating accounts for students. What a district can do is buy or enable an offering the vendor makes to schools, and those offerings carry their own age rules, consent models, and data terms.

This page records those rules as each vendor published them on September 7, 2026. It exists because the answer differs by product, differs between the consumer version and the school version of the same product, and changes without notice. Every row cites the page it came from. “Not stated” means the vendor’s page did not answer the question, which is itself a finding for an approval decision.

The table

Product	Consumer minimum age	Under 18 on the consumer product	Offering for schools	K-12 student accounts	Who consents for students	Student data used for training
ChatGPT (OpenAI)	13	Parent or guardian permission required; under-13 use only when an adult conducts the interaction	ChatGPT Edu (contract); ChatGPT for Teachers (free for U.S. K-12 staff)	Edu: student seats exist in the university market; K-12 student provisioning is contract-gated and not stated publicly. For Teachers: staff only, no student accounts	Edu: parent or guardian consent, which the school must obtain under OpenAI’s student data privacy agreement	Consumer: yes by default, with opt-out. Edu and For Teachers: not used for training by default
Gemini (Google)	13 with a personal or school Google Account; 18 for work accounts	13 and older may use it; under 13 only through a Family Link supervised account a parent enables, with web-app limits	Gemini for Education in Google Workspace for Education, a core service since June 2025, including Gemini in Classroom	Yes when the Workspace administrator enables it; Google states it is available to Workspace for Education users of all ages, with stricter content policies for users under 18 and some features limited to adults	The school, through the Workspace for Education terms, which state the customer consents as required under COPPA, and the admin age-based settings	Not used for model training outside the domain and not human reviewed, per Google’s education privacy notice
Claude (Anthropic)	18	No under-18 path	Claude for Teachers (K-12 staff); Claude for Education (higher education)	None. Claude for Teachers is educator-only and states it is not for students	Not applicable	Consumer: may train unless the user opts out. For Teachers and commercial terms: not used for training
Microsoft Copilot (consumer)	13, higher in some countries	Parent or guardian must agree to the Microsoft Services Agreement; Family Safety controls	Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat for education; paid Microsoft 365 Copilot for students 13 and older	13 and older in a school tenant once the admin sets the student age group to NotAdult; students under 13 are not eligible	The school, through tenant age-group settings; no parent step stated	Consumer: not used for users under 18. Education: not used to train foundation models under enterprise data protection
Perplexity	13	Parent or guardian must accept the terms for users under the age of majority	Enterprise Pro for schools, students 13 and older; a verified-student discount plan	13 and older through a school contract or a consumer account with parent acceptance	Parent (consumer) or school contract (enterprise)	Consumer: retention for training is on by default, with an account toggle. Enterprise: never used or retained for training
Grok (xAI)	13	Parent or guardian must agree to the terms for 13 to 17; xAI warns outputs may include mature content	None found	13 and older with parent permission on grok.com; 13 and older on X	Parent	User can choose whether content trains models; no minor-specific carve-out stated
Meta AI	13	Not stated; teen accounts receive teen protections and parents can limit AI-character chats	None found	13 and older through a personal account	Not stated	Meta states it uses interactions to improve AI; no U.S. minor carve-out stated
Character.AI	13 (16 in the EEA and UK)	Not stated; open-ended chat for users under 18 was removed in November 2025	None found	Teens keep a limited experience without open-ended chat	Not stated	Public data used for training; user-content terms refer to regional disclosures
Snapchat My AI	13	Not stated; a trusted adult can disable My AI in Family Center	None found	13 and older through a personal account	Not stated	Content used to improve Snap products and personalize, including ads; no minor carve-out stated
MagicSchool (MagicStudent)	Not stated for adults beyond contract capacity; educator product	Not applicable	MagicStudent through the school’s agreement	Yes; students under 18 may only access the service through the school’s agreement, entering teacher-created rooms	The school, under the COPPA school-consent exception; parent consent for non-school use	Not used to train, fine-tune, or improve models
SchoolAI (Spaces)	Not stated	Not applicable	Spaces through the school’s agreement	Yes; students join a Space with an educator’s code or an institution account	The school, on behalf of parents under the school-as-agent model	Children’s personal information not used to train models outside direct educational features
Brisk Teaching (Brisk Boost)	18, or under 18 with permission of a parent or educational institution	Permission of parent or school required	Brisk Boost through the school’s agreement	Yes; students reach Boost by a direct link from their teacher	The school under its student data privacy addendum; parent outside school	Student and teacher inputs never used to train models
Khanmigo (Khan Academy)	Under 13 only with parent or school approval; under 18 requires a parent to agree to the terms	Parent must agree; under-18 use of AI features must be supervised by an authorized adult	Khanmigo for Districts; Khanmigo Teacher Tools (staff, 18 and older); family plan purchased by a parent	Yes through a district partnership or a parent-managed child account; teachers outside partner districts cannot enable it for students	The school (districts) or the parent (family plan)	Khan’s model providers are not permitted to train on input data

Three patterns run through the table.

Consumer floors are 13 or 18, and 13 usually comes with a parent-permission condition. ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity, Grok, and Meta AI all say 13. OpenAI, xAI, Perplexity, and Microsoft add a parent or guardian condition for users under 18 or under the age of majority. Anthropic is 18 throughout. None of these vendors offers a school a way to consent for a consumer account.

School offerings move the consent to the school, but only for some products. The classroom tools built for K-12 (MagicSchool, SchoolAI, Brisk, Khanmigo for Districts) and Google’s Workspace for Education explicitly use the COPPA school-consent model for students under 13. Microsoft’s education offering admits 13 to 17 and excludes under 13. OpenAI’s student data privacy agreement places consent on the parent or guardian, obtained by the school. Anthropic has no student offering.

Training terms follow the offering, not the brand. The same vendor can train on a consumer account by default and promise not to train on a school account. A district that approves “ChatGPT” without specifying the plan and the account type has not made a decision.

The COPPA school-authorization rule

The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule requires verifiable parental consent before an operator collects personal information from a child under 13. The FTC’s COPPA FAQ, Section N, explains when a school may stand in for the parent. In the FTC’s words, a school may consent on behalf of a parent for collection of a child’s personal information, and the operator may use the personal information collected from students only for educational purposes. The operator must provide notice of its information practices to the school.

The conditions matter for AI tools:

Educational purpose only. The authorization covers collection for the school’s use and benefit. It does not cover commercial purposes, including advertising or building profiles for non-educational uses.
Notice to the school. The school must be able to review the operator’s practices, which is why the classroom tools above publish student data policies and sign data-processing agreements.
Not for general-audience services. A school cannot use the authorization to enroll students in a consumer service whose terms exclude them. The vendor’s own floor governs.
Parents keep rights. The school should be able to tell parents which operators it has authorized and how a parent can review or delete a child’s information.

The FTC published amendments to the COPPA Rule on April 22, 2025, effective June 23, 2025, with most compliance obligations due by April 22, 2026. The amendments added a separate parental opt-in for disclosures to third parties for targeted advertising, data-retention limits, security-program requirements, and biometric identifiers in the definition of personal information. The FTC declined to finalize the proposed provisions specific to educational technology in a school environment, citing possible conflict with pending FERPA rulemaking, and said it will continue to enforce COPPA in the ed tech context consistent with its existing guidance. The school-authorization practice above therefore still rests on the FAQ and the 2022 policy statement rather than on new rule text.

State law can add to this. Oklahoma requires a parent opt-out from student-facing AI tools, Florida has proposed a parent opt-in, and several states require data-processing agreements that bar training on student data. The state laws and guidance tracker keeps those current.

How to use the table in a tool approval

Identify the exact product, plan, and account type a teacher or vendor is proposing. “Gemini” could mean a personal account, a Workspace for Education account with Gemini enabled, or Gemini inside Classroom. They have different rules.
Check the age floor against the grade band. A 13-and-older product cannot be approved for a fifth-grade class, whatever the lesson plan says.
Identify who consents and record it. School authorization under COPPA, parent permission required by the vendor, or no path at all. If it is parent permission, decide how the district collects and stores it.
Read the training clause for that plan, then put it in the data-processing agreement. The vendor and DPA review questions cover the language.
Record the decision in the register with the source URL and the date you read it. The AI application register template has the fields.
Enforce the decision. An approval that lives in a spreadsheet does not stop a student from opening a consumer account. The supported-product capability matrix records which surfaces Tenet Edge can govern on managed Chrome, including blocking detected unapproved AI interfaces.

What changed in the last year

OpenAI introduced ChatGPT for Teens with age prediction and parental controls, launched ChatGPT for Teachers for U.S. K-12 staff (free through June 2028), and expanded ChatGPT for Teachers to districts through a multi-state data privacy agreement in August 2026. The consumer floor stayed at 13 with parent permission under 18.
Anthropic launched Claude for Teachers in July 2026 as an educator-only K-12 product and kept its 18-and-older rule for all users.
Google made the Gemini app a Workspace for Education core service for users of all ages in June 2025, turned Gemini in Classroom on by default, and kept stricter content policies and adult-only features for users under 18.
Microsoft priced a paid Microsoft 365 Copilot plan for students 13 and older starting December 2025 and documented that students under 13 in school tenants have no access.
Character.AI removed open-ended chat for users under 18 in November 2025 and added age assurance.
Meta added parental controls over AI-character chats, topic visibility for parents, and automatic teen-account placement for suspected teens between October 2025 and May 2026.
The FTC amended COPPA in April 2025 without finalizing the proposed school-specific provisions.

What this page does not establish

This page does not determine:

that a vendor’s terms will read the same way tomorrow;
that a school offering satisfies every state consent, notice, or opt-out requirement;
that a training clause on a marketing page matches the contract the district signs;
that a product which admits students is instructionally appropriate for them; or
that Tenet can govern every surface of every product listed.

Verify the live terms, the signed agreement, and the dated capability matrix before an approval decision.

Sources

Frequently asked questions

Can a school sign students up for a consumer AI chatbot?

The vendor’s terms decide. ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity, Grok, and Meta AI set a consumer floor of 13, and several require a parent or guardian to agree for users under 18. Claude is 18 and older with no under-18 path. A school account does not lower a consumer floor; it can only meet it through an offering the vendor makes to schools.

Which AI products allow K-12 students under 13?

In the terms reviewed on September 7, 2026, the products that admit students under 13 do so through a school agreement under the COPPA school-authorization model: MagicSchool’s MagicStudent, SchoolAI Spaces, Brisk Boost, Khanmigo for Districts, and Gemini in Classroom for Workspace for Education users. Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat excludes students under 13. ChatGPT and Claude have no under-13 student path.

Which AI products are staff only?

ChatGPT for Teachers and Claude for Teachers are for educators and staff only and do not provide student accounts. Anthropic’s consumer and education offerings are 18 and older throughout, so no Anthropic product currently admits K-12 students.

What is the COPPA school-authorization rule?

Under the FTC’s COPPA guidance, a school may authorize an operator to collect personal information from students under 13 in place of parental consent, but only for the school’s educational purpose, only with notice of the operator’s practices to the school, and not for commercial purposes such as advertising. A school cannot use that authorization to enroll students in a general-audience consumer service.

Does using a school offering mean student data is never used for training?

Each school offering in this table states that student data is not used to train models, but consumer versions of the same products often train by default with an opt-out. The distinction is the offering, the contract, and the account type, not the brand. Confirm the training clause in the data-processing agreement for the exact plan the district buys.

How does this table relate to the Tenet capability matrix?

This table records the vendor’s rule for who may use a product. The capability matrix records which product surfaces Tenet Edge can govern. A product that fails the age or consent test should not be approved for students regardless of whether it can be governed.

AI Product Age and Consent Requirements for K-12: A Dated Table (2026)