Meta expands Instagram AI age detection technology globally

Meta announced on Monday it is expanding its AI‑powered age‑estimation technology on Instagram worldwide to identify more teenagers and place them into Teen Account protections.

The system analyses entire profiles for contextual clues such as birthday celebrations, school‑grade mentions, captions, comments and visual cues like a person’s height or bone structure, and will flag accounts that appear to belong to 13‑17‑year‑olds even if an adult birthday is provided. Users moved to Teen Accounts receive a stricter experience, with direct messages limited to people they follow, harmful comments hidden and the account set to private by default.

Meta said the rollout will also continue on Facebook and that a similar global launch for Threads is planned later this year. In Australia the company is using Apple’s age‑range signal as an additional detection method, and parents in the United States will start seeing an in‑feed video or notification on Instagram that explains the new approach.

The global expansion follows a settlement of $17.1 billion reached in August with 52 bipartisan attorneys general across U.S. states, territories and the District of Columbia, under which Meta agreed to improve how it identifies teens and children under 13. “We’ll continue to do our part to proactively ensure teens are in age‑appropriate experiences on our apps,” Meta wrote in a blog post, adding that it is investing in stronger technology to catch accounts that may belong to children under 13 and to identify teens between the ages of 13 and 17 so they can be placed in appropriate experiences.