It might be for the best.
By Stan Schroeder on March 26, 2026.
OpenAI has had a busy week terminating projects. Just days after shutting down its video generation app Sora, a new report from Financial Times suggests the company has indefinitely postponed plans to launch an x-rated chatbot. Initially slated for release in the fall of 2025 as a feature for verified users, the adult mode for ChatGPT was recently delayed. However, the company was still planning to proceed, with a spokesperson mentioning that delivering the right (adult) experience would require more time.
Now, it seems the project is shelved permanently. Instead, the company will focus on its core products, according to the report. The rationale behind this decision is understandable, especially considering the problems that the Grok chatbot caused its creator xAI over sexualized imagery of adults and children. OpenAI’s investors and staff expressed concerns about a sexualized AI and its societal impact. Furthermore, there were technical challenges—such as the bot’s difficulty in accurately differentiating between adults and minors, with an error rate over 10 percent.
More broadly, it seems that both the dismantling of Sora and the adult mode are part of OpenAI’s effort to minimize lawsuits. In the past six months, several lawsuits have been filed against OpenAI after young people committed suicide following interactions with ChatGPT, prompting the introduction of an age prediction system in January.
Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in April, alleging copyright infringement in its AI systems.
Topics: Artificial Intelligence.
Stan Schroeder is a Senior Editor at Mashable, where he has worked since 2007. He’s known for having more gadgets and band t-shirts than most. He covers groundbreaking innovations, typically phones, coins, or cars. His ultimate goal is to know a bit about everything.