Meta now lets parents see what teens ask its AI

Meta is giving parents a window into their teenager's AI conversations for the first time, not the messages themselves, but the topics. Meta's supervision hub now has an updated Insights tab which shows weekly reports about the topics that teenagers discuss with Meta AI through Facebook Messenger and Instagram.

The feature organises conversations into broad categories: school, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, writing, and health and wellbeing, among others. Lifestyle parents can explore subcategories which include fashion, food and holidays, while health and wellbeing parents can explore three subcategories which cover fitness, physical health and mental health.

The tool does not display actual conversation dialogues but instead shows the different thematic categories which it has established.

The update is currently operational in the US, UK, Australia, Canada and Brazil with a global expansion plan which will begin next week. Meta first signalled this feature was in development back in October 2024, when it outlined plans to build parental AI guidance tools.

The Insights tab arrives in the wake of a significant legal defeat. Meta suspended teen access to its AI characters, interactive personas modelled on celebrities including Snoop Dogg and Paris Hilton, globally in January, just days before a child safety lawsuit went to trial in New Mexico.

The court found Meta legally liable for endangering minors, the first time a court has held the company accountable on those grounds.

Meta had originally planned to offer parents the ability to block specific AI characters or disable them entirely. With those characters now paused for teens pending a redesign, the focus has shifted to transparency around the core Meta AI product instead.

Alongside the Insights tab, Meta announced Wednesday that it is providing parents with suggested conversation starters to help them discuss AI use with their teens without judgement.