The AI smut market is booming, and tech executives are starting to notice.
Indeed, one study found that about 16 percent of adults are having at least weekly intimate conversations with AI chatbots, while naughty AI generators are churning out hundreds of thousands of images a day. By one estimate, the market for AI erotica is said to be worth around $2.5 billion in 2025 alone.
With so much up for grabs, it’s no wonder OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wants a piece of the pie.
Back in October, Altman announced ChatGPT would soon begin giving verified adult users access to “erotica,” as part of a “treat adult users like adults” mantra.
Speaking to the press, OpenAI’s CEO of Applications Fidji Simo said she expects ChatGPT’s “adult mode” to go live sometime in the first three months of 2026, according toThe Verge. (She also added the not-so-reassuring caveat that the company needs to get “better at age prediction” before it releases the feature.)
Simo said that OpenAI is already testing adult mode out in some countries before it rolls out in the US, though didn’t say exactly which countries were being used as guinea pigs. She also added that the company wants to be just as confident that it’s “not misidentifying adults” as it is that it’s filtering out children.
When the company does finally turn on the hose, ChatGPT is sure to become an erotic fountain of epic proportions. Online tools for generating AI smut are already prolific, flooding the internet with nonconsensual deepfakes — a horrifying situation which the most widely used AI chatbot is likely to make worse.
OpenAI’s moves notably follow Elon Musk’s decision to turn his own proprietary AI, Grok, into a hybrid skin flick generator and virtual girlfriend all wrapped into one.
It also comes right on the heels of CNBC talking head Jim Cramer’s prediction that OpenAI would soon lose tens of millions of users to Google’s Gemini 3. In early December, OpenAI internally declared what it calls “code red” mode — a mad scramble to quickly improve ChatGPT as Gemini 3 threatens its lead as the dominant AI chatbot.
Whatever happens next is difficult to say, but it’s likely the web will never be the same.
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