Older adults are already using AI. OpenAI is hosting the Older Adults AI Skills Jam to help them use ChatGPT confidently and safely, turning a growing pattern of use into a reason for practical guidance rather than another round of tech-industry cheerleading. The workshops are free and will take place across multiple U.S. communities with OATS and local organizations.
The Jam is part of a multi-year effort launched by OpenAI with Older Adults Technology Services (OATS). Through its flagship program, Senior Planet, the effort aims to help older adults build practical AI skills and stay safe online.
That focus matters because the audience is not standing outside the AI wave waiting for an invitation. In the U.S., the share of messages associated with people 55+ grew from 6% to nearly 10% in a year. The figure does not describe every older adult or every use of ChatGPT, but it does show that older users represent a growing share of activity.
The program also addresses a task that has little to do with novelty: checking whether digital communication deserves trust. Tens of millions of times a week, people ask ChatGPT for help evaluating suspicious messages, emails, and websites. That use case places safety beside convenience, where it belongs.
Local organizations will host the workshops
The Older Adults AI Skills Jam brings the effort to named community organizations in locations across the country. OpenAI Academy is participating with Fresno EOC in Fresno, California; LEARN Idaho in Boise, Idaho; and Senior Planet sites in Denver, Colorado, Miami, Florida, San Antonio, Texas, Montgomery County, Maryland, and Queens, New York.
The participating network also includes The Mirowitz Center in St. Louis, Missouri, and Senior Community Services in Twin Cities, Minnesota. The Nashville Public Library and FiftyForward in Nashville, Tennessee, are part of the effort as well.
That spread gives the Jam a practical shape. Rather than treating AI guidance as a single online lesson, OpenAI, OATS, Senior Planet, and local organizations are putting the program in several communities. The format connects a broad technology effort with organizations already named as part of the workshops, which is less glamorous than a launch event and more useful.
Safety is the point, not a footnote
OpenAI describes the Older Adults AI Skills Jam as a way to help older adults use ChatGPT confidently and safely. The broader multi-year effort adds practical AI skills and online safety through Senior Planet, making the program about judgment as much as interaction with a chatbot.
The available figures explain why that combination matters. A rise from 6% to nearly 10% in the share of messages associated with people 55+ shows a larger presence in ChatGPT activity, while the tens of millions of weekly requests about suspicious messages, emails, and websites show how often people seek help with digital trust.
Those facts do not turn ChatGPT into a final authority on suspicious content, and the program does not claim that it does. They establish a narrower point: people are using the system while trying to understand whether online material is safe. Teaching confident use without teaching caution would miss the actual problem.
The Older Adults AI Skills Jam is scheduled as part of this effort on September 16, 2026. Its message is direct: older adults should have access to practical AI skills, and those skills should include ways to stay safe online.
That is a sensible ambition for a technology that has already reached millions of weekly safety-related questions. The useful measure here is not whether AI can produce another impressive demonstration. It is whether people can use ChatGPT with enough confidence to get help and enough caution to question what they see.
