ChatGPT to act more human-like, says CEO Altman

OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, has announced that the company will soon release a new version of ChatGPT that is less restrictive in handling certain topics, including mental health, and offers more options for customising the chatbot’s personality.

In a post shared on X, Altman said the earlier restrictions were implemented to ensure the chatbot approached sensitive topics responsibly.

We made ChatGPT pretty restrictive to make sure we were being careful with mental health issues. We realize this made it less useful/enjoyable to many users who had no mental health problems, but given the seriousness of the issue we wanted to get this right.

Now that we have…

— Sam Altman (@sama) October 14, 2025

“We made ChatGPT pretty restrictive to make sure we were being careful with mental health issues. We realise this made it less useful/enjoyable to many users who had no mental health problems, but given the seriousness of the issue, we wanted to get this right,” Altman said.

He added that with new tools and safety measures in place, the company now plans to “safely relax the restrictions in most cases.” The updated version, expected in the coming weeks, will allow users to choose personalities that behave more like the earlier GPT-4o model.

“If you want your ChatGPT to respond in a very human-like way, or use a ton of emoji, or act like a friend, ChatGPT should do it (but only if you want it, not because we are usage-maxxing),” Altman wrote.

He also mentioned that by December, as the company introduces broader age-gating measures, it plans to expand features under its ‘treat adult users like adults’ policy, which will include allowing certain adult content for verified users.