Usage Policies

OpenAI's Usage Policies were rewritten ahead of a November 20, 2026 effective date. Most changes tighten or clarify rules on what users can't do: a new section bans using OpenAI models or outputs to train competing AI models, a new 'OpenAI-approved use' section formalizes partnerships allowing national security/law enforcement/intelligence uses on a case-by-case basis, third parties that resell access to OpenAI models now need prior approval, and rules around AI-generated professional advice and high-stakes automated decisions were broadened. Child and teen safety protections were also expanded and reorganized, which is a positive change. Most of this document targets developers and businesses building on OpenAI's models rather than everyday chat users, but it does signal expanding government/law-enforcement use of the service.

New restriction on building AI advice tools and claiming credentialsIf you build or offer an AI-based tool that gives advice normally requiring a license…

If you build or offer an AI-based tool that gives advice normally requiring a license (like legal or medical advice), you now have a clearer, broader obligation to involve a licensed professional, and you can't let the AI claim or imply it has professional credentials.

“building or offering AI tools that provide others with tailored advice that requires a license, without appropriate involvement by a licensed professional. You also may not state or imply that the AI itself holds professional credentials or authorization.”

What you can do — If you build or offer a tool that gives licensed-type advice, make sure a licensed professional is involved and don't let the AI claim to be credentialed.

USER OBLIGATIONS

New ban on using outputs to train rival AI modelsA new rule bars using OpenAI's models or their outputs to create training data, feedback,…

A new rule bars using OpenAI's models or their outputs to create training data, feedback, or signals for building competing AI models, even indirectly through someone else. Violating this could put your access to OpenAI's service at risk, which matters if you or your business relies on it.

“You must not use OpenAI models or their outputs to generate, prepare, select, or supply training material or signals for models that are intended as alternatives to or substitutes for OpenAI models or services.”

What you can do — If you or your business uses OpenAI outputs in any way connected to training or improving another AI model, review this new section carefully before continuing that work.

USER OBLIGATIONS

New pathway for government, military, and law enforcement useOpenAI added a formal process to grant case-by-case exceptions letting specific partners…

OpenAI added a formal process to grant case-by-case exceptions letting specific partners use its services for national security, intelligence, and law enforcement purposes — including contexts involving use of force — that would otherwise be restricted. This signals an expansion of government and law-enforcement partnerships, which may concern users who care about how the technology is used in surveillance or policing contexts.

“we support national security, intelligence, and law enforcement uses of our services that benefit people, strengthen democratic governance, and preserve appropriate human judgment and accountability”

OTHER

New approval requirement for reselling access to OpenAI modelsIf your business lets other companies or people directly access OpenAI's models through…

If your business lets other companies or people directly access OpenAI's models through your own platform, you must now get OpenAI's advance approval, adding a new compliance step that wasn't previously spelled out.

“If you operate a model-access intermediary platform or other service that enables third parties to directly access OpenAI models, you must obtain our prior review and approval.”

What you can do — If you operate a platform that gives others direct access to OpenAI models, contact OpenAI for approval before continuing to offer that access.

USER OBLIGATIONS

20260927_rev01 → 20261023_rev01COLOUR MARKS THE SEVERITY OF A FLAGGED CLAUSE · + AND − MARK ADDED AND REMOVED

+_Effective: November 20, 2026 |_ [_Previous Version_](https://openai.com/policies/usage-policies/revisions/2025-10-29/)
 We aim for our tools to be used safely and responsibly, while maximizing your control over how you use them. In building our Usage Policies, we keep a few important things in mind.
 **We empower users to innovate with AI**. We build AI products that maximize helpfulness and freedom, while ensuring safety. Usage Policies are just one way we set clear expectations for the use of our products within a broader safety ecosystem that sets responsible guardrails across our services. You can [learn more](https://openai.com/safety/how-we-think-about-safety-alignment/) about our safety approach and [our commitment to](https://openai.com/index/introducing-the-model-spec/) customizability, transparency, and intellectual freedom to explore, debate, and create with AI.
 **Responsible use is a shared priority**. We assume the very best of our users. Our [terms and policies](https://openai.com/policies/)-including these Usage Policies-set a reasonable bar for acceptable use. Our rules are no substitute for legal requirements, professional duties, or ethical obligations that should influence how people use AI. We hold people accountable for inappropriate use of our services, and breaking or circumventing our rules and safeguards may mean you lose access to our systems or experience other penalties.
     - illicit activities, goods, or services
     - destruction, compromise, or breach of another's system or property, including malicious or abusive cyber activity or attempts to infringe on intellectual property rights of others
     - real money gambling
+    - provision of tailored advice that requires a license, such as legal or medical advice, without appropriate involvement by a licensed professional
+    - building or offering AI tools that provide others with tailored advice that requires a license, without appropriate involvement by a licensed professional. You also may not state or imply that the AI itself holds professional credentials or authorization.
     - unsolicited safety testing
     - circumventing our safeguards
+    - national security or intelligence purposes without our review and approval
+    - national security, law enforcement, or intelligence purposes without our review and approval
 - **Respect privacy**. People are entitled to privacy. So, we don't allow attempts to compromise the privacy of others, including to aggregate, monitor, profile, or distribute individuals' private or sensitive information without their authorization. And, you may never use our services for:
     - facial recognition databases without data subject consent
     - real-time remote biometric identification in public spaces
     - evaluation or classification of individuals based on their social behavior, personal traits, or biometric data (including social scoring, profiling, or inferring sensitive attributes)
     - inference regarding an individual's emotions in the workplace and educational settings, except when necessary for medical or safety reasons
     - assessment or prediction of the risk of an individual committing a criminal offense based solely on their personal traits or on profiling
+- **Keep minors safe**. Children and teens deserve special protection. Our services are designed to prevent harm and support their well-being, and must never be used to exploit, endanger, or sexualize anyone under 18 years old. [We report](https://openai.com/index/combating-online-child-sexual-exploitation-abuse/) apparent child sexual abuse material and child endangerment to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. We prohibit use of our services for:
+- **Keep young people safe**. Children and teens deserve special protection. Our services are designed to prevent harm and support their well-being.
+    - Child sexual abuse and exploitation: Our services must not be used to cause, enable, facilitate, support, or encourage the sexual abuse, exploitation, or sexualisation of anyone under 18. [We report](https://openai.com/index/combating-online-child-sexual-exploitation-abuse/) apparent child sexual abuse material and other child sexual abuse conduct to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. We prohibit use of our services for:
     - child sexual abuse material (CSAM), whether or not any portion is AI generated
+    - grooming of minors
+    - grooming, sextortion or any form of conduct based child sexual abuse
+    - exposing minors to age-inappropriate content, such as graphic self-harm, sexual, or violent content
+    - sexualizing children
+    - promoting unhealthy dieting or exercise behavior to minors
+    - other usage or behaviour that supports the sexual abuse or exploitation of children
+    - shaming or otherwise stigmatizing the body type or appearance of minors
+    - Teens' use of our products and services: OpenAI tools must not be used to endanger anyone under 18. We build age-appropriate safeguards designed to reduce exposure to content that may be harmful or developmentally inappropriate. We prohibit use of our services for:
+    - dangerous challenges for minors
+        - exposing minors to age-inappropriate content, such as graphic self-harm, sexual, or violent content
+    - underaged sexual or violent roleplay
+        - promoting unhealthy dieting or exercise behavior to minors
+    - underaged access to age-restricted goods or activities
+        - shaming or otherwise stigmatizing the body type or appearance of minors
+        - promoting or facilitating dangerous challenges or age restricted goods and services to minors
+        - underaged sexual or violent roleplay
 - **Empower people**. People should be able to make decisions about their lives and their communities. So we don't allow our services to be used to manipulate or deceive people, to interfere with their exercise of human rights, to exploit people's vulnerabilities, or to interfere with their ability to get an education or access critical services, including any use for:
     - academic dishonesty
     - deceit, fraud, scams, spam, or impersonation
+    - political campaigning, lobbying, foreign or domestic election interference, or demobilization activities
+    - [political campaigning(opens in a new window)](https://help.openai.com/en/articles/20001255-political-campaigning-restrictions), lobbying, foreign or domestic election interference, or demobilization activities
+    - automation of high-stakes decisions in sensitive areas without human review
+    - automation of high-stakes actions in sensitive areas without human review. This includes actions, decisions, transactions, submissions, and other steps that materially affect a person's rights, safety, access to essential services, or other consequential interests in areas such as:
         - critical infrastructure
         - education
         - housing
         - medical
         - essential government services
         - product safety components
+        - national security
+        - national security, intelligence, and law enforcement
         - migration
+        - law enforcement
+- **Training and developing models.** Capable models must have safeguards proportionate to the risks they pose before they are deployed. Training another model on OpenAI outputs can transfer capabilities without carrying those safeguards over.
+    - You must not use OpenAI models or their outputs to generate, prepare, select, or supply training material or signals for models that are intended as alternatives to or substitutes for OpenAI models or services. This includes:
+        - Creating or preparing training data, training tasks, rubrics, or reinforcement-learning environments.
+        - Providing feedback used in training, including labels, scores, rankings, preferences, rewards, or corrections.
+        - Selecting, filtering, or validating training data, tasks, or trajectories.
+    - You must not attempt to extract protected reasoning through unauthorized access, reverse engineering, or circumvention of safeguards.
+    - These restrictions apply whether you perform the work yourself, for another party, or through someone acting on your behalf, even if you do not train the resulting model. They also apply when outputs from product use or evaluation are later used or supplied for those training purposes.
+    - You may use OpenAI models for research, software development, model evaluation and benchmarking, and product development, within these boundaries.
+    - These restrictions do not prohibit uses expressly permitted by your applicable Agreement with OpenAI, including any Permitted Exception under the [Services Agreement](https://openai.com/policies/services-agreement/).
+**OpenAI-approved use.** Some otherwise prohibited uses of our services are beneficial to society provided there are appropriate safeguards. To support those uses, OpenAI may grant specific partners case-by-case exceptions to certain restrictions in these Usage Policies. We review factors such as the partner, proposed use, applicable safeguards, and the partner's compliance commitments. These uses may require written terms and apply only to the approved partner, use, and conditions. For example:
+- **National security, intelligence, and law enforcement.** Subject to the requirements described above, and as described in our [Principles for National Security Partnerships(opens in a new window)](https://cdn.openai.com/pdf/openai-principles-for-national-security-partnerships.pdf), we support national security, intelligence, and law enforcement uses of our services that benefit people, strengthen democratic governance, and preserve appropriate human judgment and accountability. But all customers and uses must comply with our requirements on preserving human judgment and accountability over high stakes decisions, including the use of force, in the national security and law enforcement space, and with other prohibitions in our Principles on the use of our tools for mass domestic surveillance and evasion of legal obligations, oversight, or accountability.
+**Providing access to our models.** If you operate a model-access intermediary platform or other service that enables third parties to directly access OpenAI models, you must obtain our prior review and approval. This requirement does not apply solely because an application integrates OpenAI models to power its features or functionality.
 ## Changelog
+- 2026-10-21: We've updated our Usage Policies to clarify restrictions on using OpenAI models and outputs to train other models. We've also clarified protections for children and teens and requirements for high-stakes uses. The update also incorporates our existing national security principles and sets out approval requirements for national security and law enforcement uses, as well as for model-access intermediaries. These changes are effective November 20, 2026.
 - 2025-10-29: We've updated our Usage Policies to reflect a universal set of policies across OpenAI products and services.
 - 2025-01-29: We've updated our Universal Policies to clarify prohibitions under applicable laws.
 - 2024-01-10: We've updated our Usage Policies to be clearer and provide more service-specific guidance.