Last updated November 14, 2026: rewritten for iOS 27, which moved these controls and added Ask to Browse. Every Apple step below was re-read on Apple's support pages today.
Yes, you can block AI apps on your child's iPhone, as long as the phone is in your Family Sharing group. Go to Settings, Family, your child's name, Apps & Websites, tap the app, then Block App. Block its website and set Apple's own AI switches too. No setting reaches the AI inside other apps, Google's AI answers, or a school-managed device.
What can Screen Time block, and what can it not?
| AI your child can reach | App Store age rating | How you block it | What your child can still reach |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT app | 13+ | Apps & Websites, tap the app, Block App | chatgpt.com in a browser, and ChatGPT through Siri, until you block those too |
| Google Gemini app | 13+ | Apps & Websites, tap the app, Block App | Gemini on the web, and the AI answers in Google Search |
| Character.AI app | 18+ | Block App, or set the app age rating to 16+ or lower | The website in a browser |
| Claude app | 18+ | Block App, or set the app age rating to 16+ or lower | The website in a browser |
| My AI inside Snapchat | Snapchat is 13+ | Screen Time can only block the whole of Snapchat | Everything, unless Snapchat itself goes |
| Siri and Apple Intelligence | Built in | Content & Privacy Restrictions, then Siri | Other companies' AI features |
| AI answers in Google Search | Not an app | No switch exists, according to Google | All of it, on every search |
| Anything on a school iPad | Not yours to set | The school's management system decides | Whatever the school allows |
The age ratings are the ones shown on the US App Store when I checked each listing on November 14, 2026: ChatGPT, Gemini, Character.AI, Claude and Snapchat. Ratings change, so look at the listing before you rely on one.
First, is your family on iOS 27?
The steps below are for iOS 27, the current version, where Apple rebuilt its parental controls. Apple's guide says that "every device in your Family Sharing group needs version 27 or later" to use them, and that you then upgrade the controls from Settings, Family.
If one of your devices cannot update, Apple says it "can still use Screen Time and Family Sharing settings from iOS 26" or earlier. On those phones the same ideas apply, but the menus sit under Screen Time, then Content & Privacy Restrictions, and the names differ. Follow what your own screen shows.
How do I block one AI app tonight?
This takes about two minutes, from your own phone.
- Open Settings and tap Family.
- Tap your child's name.
- Tap Apps & Websites. Enter your Screen Time passcode if asked.
- Find the app in the Allowed list and tap it.
- Tap Block App, then confirm.
That is the path on Apple's parental controls page, published October 26, 2026. Apple's page on managing a child's apps, published the same day, starts from Settings, then Screen Time, then Family, and arrives at the same list.
The Screen Time passcode is the code you set when you turned Screen Time on. It should not be one your child has watched you type.
Apple's app page tells you what happens next: "The app appears dimmed on the Home Screen, but not deleted." Your child will see it there, grayed out, and they will know. I think that helps, as long as you are the one who tells them first.
You could say: "I've turned that one off on your phone for now. I'm not angry and you're not in trouble. I want to understand what you use it for before I decide what the rule is."
That sentence does more work than the setting does.
Does blocking the app also block the website?
No. The app and the website are two separate blocks, and this is the step most parents miss.
To block a site your child has already visited:
- Go back to Settings, Family, your child's name, Apps & Websites.
- Under Allowed, tap the website.
- Tap Block Website, then tap Block Website again to confirm.
Those are the steps on Apple's Ask to Browse page, published October 26, 2026. Apple describes picking the site from that list. Its pages do not give a step for typing in an address your child has never visited.
For sites that are not on the list yet, the stronger setting is Ask to Browse:
- In Apps & Websites, tap Restrictions.
- Under Websites, tap Filtering.
- Choose Approved Websites Only.
Every new website then needs your approval. Your child taps Ask Permission, a request arrives as a message on your phone, and you approve or decline. If you do not answer within 24 hours, they have to ask again. Apple says Ask to Browse is on by default for children under 13, and that the lighter setting, Limit Adult Websites, is on by default for under-18s.
One caveat belongs here. Apple says Ask to Browse works in "Safari and other supported browser apps" and does not name the other browsers. So open every browser on your child's phone and try the blocked site in each one. If a browser gets through, block that browser as an app.
How do I switch off Apple's own AI features?
Apple's AI has its own controls. They are filed under Siri, not under anything called AI, which is why most parents never find them.
- Open Settings, tap Family, then your child's name.
- Tap Content & Privacy Restrictions. Enter your Screen Time passcode if asked.
- Tap Siri.
- Select a category and choose Allowed or Blocked.
Apple's parental controls page gives the last steps in its own words: "Tap Siri, then select a category, like Writing Assistance or Image Creation," then "Choose Allowed or Blocked." Apple's guide to these switches lists what each category covers in iOS 27:
- Writing Assistance: help with writing from Siri, including Writing Tools.
- Image Creation and Realistic Images: AI pictures in Image Playground, Genmoji and Image Wand.
- Math Assistance: help with math in Siri, Calculator and Notes. Apple's own tip says you "may want to block this capability if you don't want your child getting help with things like math homework."
- Extensions: this is the ChatGPT switch. Apple describes it as allowing ChatGPT to provide text and image capabilities through Siri's features.
- Sensitive Topics and Explicit Language: what Siri will respond to and display.
- Siri version: Siri AI (Beta), Siri Classic, or Don't Allow Siri. Apple states that "Siri AI (Beta) is only available to children 13 and up" and that younger children get Siri Classic.
Whether you should block these is a question about age more than danger, and this part is my view, not Apple's. Below about 11, I would block Writing Assistance and Math Assistance. The point of a first draft, or a page of sums, is the effort of making it, and a button that removes the effort removes the thing the homework was for. From 13 or so I would leave them on and talk instead. A teenager who finds a feature blocked often goes looking for the same help somewhere you cannot see.
These switches reach Apple's own features and the ChatGPT connection inside Siri. They do not reach the AI inside other companies' apps. They do not reach the AI answers at the top of a Google search either, which Google states cannot be turned off: "AI Overviews are a core Google Search feature, like knowledge panels. Features cannot be turned off." The nearest thing Google offers is its Web filter, chosen after a search has already run. I go through which AI has a switch and which has none, device by device, in what you can turn off on your child's phone.
How do I stop the next AI app arriving?
Blocking one app deals with yesterday. Three settings deal with tomorrow.
Age ratings. In Content & Privacy Restrictions, under Content Restrictions, Apple lets you choose "a specific age rating" so that apps rated above it are off limits. Apple added 13+, 16+ and 18+ ratings on July 24, 2025, alongside the older 4+ and 9+. The table above tells you where to set it: choosing 9+ rules out ChatGPT and Gemini, and 16+ still rules out Character.AI and Claude.
Ask to Buy. Apple's app page says "Ask to Buy is on by default for children under 13," with a footnote that the age varies by region. A download request arrives on your phone for you to approve or decline. If your child is under 13 and you have never seen one, check tonight: Apps & Websites, Restrictions, Ask to Buy, then turn on Require Purchase Approval.
Installing Apps. In Apps & Websites, tap App Store, then set Installing Apps to Blocked. This is the firmest of the three, and it suits the youngest children best.
iOS 27 also has Time Allowances, which cap daily time. Apple describes them for categories of app, such as games, social media and entertainment, not for one named app. They limit; they do not block.
None of this replaces the age rule each company sets. OpenAI's help center states that ChatGPT "is not meant for children under 13" and that those aged 13 to 18 need parental consent. Google's sign-in page says "You must be 13", or the applicable age in your country, to use Gemini with a personal or school account. I have set out the minimum age for each tool separately. But as I wrote about ChatGPT's age limit, an age limit is a promise, not a lock. It is a date of birth typed into a box, usually by the child.
If your teenager is allowed ChatGPT, the app's own family settings do a different job from Apple's, and I cover them in how to set up ChatGPT's parental controls.
Why can't I block "AI" the way I block an app?
"AI apps" sounds like a category, the way "games" is a category. It is not. On a modern iPhone, most of the AI a child meets was never installed by anybody.
It is in Siri. It is in Safari, in the AI answers at the top of a Google search. It is in Snapchat's My AI, which appeared one day at the top of a chat list in an app your child already had, and in the assistant inside Meta's apps. It is in games and messaging apps, writing captions and rephrasing messages.
Most children are already using it somewhere. Common Sense Media's first annual study of AI use by tweens and teens, released on June 8, 2026 and based on a survey of 1,204 children aged 9 to 17, reported that "86 percent of children use AI, and nearly a quarter do so every day." The same release says "more than 4 in 10 kids say no parent or guardian has ever talked with them about AI safety." A settings menu cannot close that gap.
The Still-Allowed Check is what to do in the ten minutes after you block an AI app: open the apps you did not block, and find the AI inside each one. Blocking removes the app your child told you about. The check finds the three they did not, because those arrived as a feature inside something they already had, and nobody had to install anything.
Give it ten minutes on the sofa with your child's phone in your hand and your child next to you. Open each app they use most. Look for a sparkle icon, a chat entry at the top of a list, a "summarize" or "rewrite" button. You will find more than you expect, and you will find it faster with them than without them.
What if the phone is not in my family group?
Then Apple gives you no controls to set, and what you can do depends on your child's age.
Apple's overview for kids and teens, published September 14, 2026, sets out the rules. Under 13: "You need to be part of a Family Sharing group." Ages 13 to 17: "If your parent or guardian has set up Screen Time, you need permission from your family organizer to leave the group."
So if your fifteen-year-old's phone is in your group, you have everything above. If they set the phone up on their own account, you do not have a technical route. You have a conversation, and it goes better as a trade than as an instruction.
These controls also have a limit on what they show you. Apple tells children directly that a parent "can't read your messages or listen to your conversations." Screen Time decides what your child can open. It was never built to show you what they typed, and AI chats are no exception. I cover that in what you can and cannot see of your child's ChatGPT history.
What about a school-managed iPad, a Chromebook or an Android phone?
Your settings stop at the edge of your own family group. Three devices sit outside it.
A school-issued iPad. School devices are enrolled in a management system the school runs. Apple's deployment guide for education lists among that system's tasks "Modifying restrictions: Changes settings and policies for a student or device." Your Screen Time passcode has no standing on it. If the school sends the iPad home, the school's rules come home with it.
A school Chromebook. Google states it in one sentence on its Chromebook Help page, which I re-read on November 14, 2026: "If you add a school account as a new user on your Chromebook's sign-in screen, Family Link parental controls will not apply to that user account." The same page says that "Google Workspace for Education administrators determine which Google services their users can access." A member of staff decides which AI your child can reach on that account. I explain the options you do have in parental controls on a school Chromebook.
An Android phone or tablet. The route is Google's Family Link, the menus are different, and Gemini sits behind its own switch. The steps are in how to block AI apps on Android. If your house runs on both systems, do both on the same evening.
Before any of that, look at the sign-in screen of every laptop and tablet in the house and count the accounts on it. As far as your controls are concerned, each account is a separate computer.
What is left is a question for the school: which AI services are switched on for my child's year group, and does the device you lend us stay managed by you when it comes home? I have written about what a school can see of a child's AI use, and there are nine more questions worth asking in 10 questions to ask your child's school about AI.
The mistake I see parents make
I write about these tools for Forbes, and a great deal of what I end up writing about is AI being switched on somewhere nobody announced it. That is what makes this question harder than it looks.
The mistake is treating the block as the end of the job. A parent spends twenty minutes in Settings, gets the app grayed out, feels the relief of having done something, and stops. Two weeks later the child is using the same model through a browser, or through the assistant inside a game, and nothing in the house has changed except that the parent now believes it is handled. The pattern I see most often is not a child defeating a control. It is a control that was never covering the thing the parent was worried about.
Blocking an AI app removes the one your child asked permission for. It leaves the ones that arrived without asking.
The second half of the mistake is assuming the school has the rest covered. If your child's school has never written to parents about what its devices allow and what its staff have been trained to do, say so to the school, and it is the work I do with schools through an AI readiness review.
How does this change by age?
Under 8. Block generously and explain briefly. Set Installing Apps to Blocked and leave Ask to Browse on. At this age the AI they are most likely to meet is a voice assistant answering a question they were about to wonder about. You could say: "Let's guess first, then we'll ask."
8 to 12. Set the age rating to 9+, keep Ask to Buy on, and block Writing Assistance and Math Assistance. This is when apps start arriving through friends, and when written homework starts to count. Do the Still-Allowed Check together and make it ordinary, not an inspection. You could say: "Show me the ones with the little sparkle on them. What do they do?"
13 to 15. Blocking alone starts to fail here, because this is the age of the second account and the logged-out browser. Aim for a phone that is in your family group with fewer restrictions, not one outside it with none. This is also a good age to write the rules down together, and a one-page family AI agreement gives you a starting draft. You could say: "I'd rather know what you're using than police it. What's the one you'd be annoyed to lose?"
16 to 18. Controls are mostly the wrong tool now. What helps is the habit of checking a machine's answer, because they are about to take it into exams, applications and a first job. You could say: "What's the last thing it got wrong?"
What can blocking not guarantee?
A block on the app does not block the website. A block in your family group does not cover a friend's phone, a shared tablet, a games console or the school's device. It does not stop a second account being made on a different email address. Apple's Siri switches cover Apple's features and the ChatGPT connection, so the rewrite button inside a messaging app stays exactly where it was. What you see can also differ by country. Apple notes: "In some places, settings like Screen Time, Ask to Buy, Ask to Browse, and content restrictions for apps can't be turned off." And a determined teenager with time and a search engine can get around most parental controls. Use them anyway, alongside the conversation.
Two things take precedence over anything in this article. Your child's school sets the rules for its own devices and its own work, and where those conflict with your home rule, the school's rule applies at school. And if what is worrying you is not the app but your child, if something they have said or written has frightened you, that is a conversation for your doctor, your pediatrician or your school's safeguarding lead, the member of staff responsible for child protection. It is not a job for a settings menu.
The 15-minute checklist to copy
- Every family device is on iOS 27 and the parental controls are upgraded (Settings, Family).
- The one app you know about is blocked (Apps & Websites, tap the app, Block App).
- Its website is blocked, or Approved Websites Only is on (Apps & Websites, Restrictions, Filtering).
- You have tried the blocked site in every browser on the phone.
- Apple's Siri switches are set for your child's age, including Extensions for ChatGPT.
- The app age rating is set, and Ask to Buy is on.
- You have told your child what you changed and why, before they find the grayed-out icon.
- You have done the Still-Allowed Check together.
- You have asked the school what AI its device allows, and who checks it.
If you want the next of these as it is written, I send one email a week to parents on exactly this, and you can sign up here.
Dan Fitzpatrick is a former teacher and assistant headteacher who now works with schools on AI. More about Dan.
