For over a decade, Google and YouTube have been committed to helping children and teens learn, grow, and stay safe online. Through innovative products, supportive programs, and built-in safety features, they’ve worked to create a healthier digital environment for young users. On this year’s Safer Internet Day, the companies are unveiling new updates designed to empower families, support young minds, and promote responsible digital engagement. To help parents manage their children’s online experiences more effectively, Google has enhanced Family Link with a redesigned interface that allows parents to oversee devices from a single, intuitive dashboard. The updated design includes a centralized screen-time management tab, where parents can view usage summaries, set time limits, and adjust controls with greater ease. For YouTube, a refreshed sign-up process now makes it simpler for parents to create kid accounts and switch between them seamlessly within the mobile app. Parents can also now set daily time limits for scrolling through Shorts—coming soon, they’ll have the option to disable Shorts entirely for younger users. Additionally, parents of supervised kid and teen accounts can customize Bedtime and Take a Break reminders, building on YouTube’s default-on wellbeing features to encourage healthier habits. YouTube continues to prioritize high-quality, age-appropriate content for teens. The platform recently introduced new teen quality content principles and a dedicated creator guide to help content creators produce videos that are fun, enriching, and suitable for adolescent audiences. These guidelines not only educate creators but also shape YouTube’s recommendation algorithms, helping to surface more meaningful content to teen viewers. This builds on YouTube’s existing commitment to quality, which began five years ago with similar principles for younger users, fostering curiosity and safe exploration. YouTube is also collaborating with trusted, high-quality creators and programs like Sesame Street to bring educational and uplifting content to families worldwide. To help students understand the growing role of AI, Google launched the Be Internet Awesome AI literacy guide in August. Designed for educators of grades 2 through 8, the guide provides free, downloadable lesson plans and interactive classroom activities that make AI concepts accessible and engaging for young learners. The program will expand this year with additional curriculum enhancements and Online Safety Roadshows in the U.S. and Canada. Gemini now features Guided Learning mode, a new AI-powered tool that supports students by acting as a personal learning companion. Instead of simply delivering answers, it encourages deeper thinking through thoughtful questions and open-ended exploration across subjects like history, science, and computer programming. Google is also scaling its global impact through partnerships. In 2025, its network of partners trained more than 60,000 caregivers, educators, and parents across the U.S., Brazil, India, Mexico, the UK, and Spain on online safety tools. Today, the company is announcing expanded collaborations with leading organizations including the Parent Teacher Association, the National Center for Families and Learning, Education for Sharing, the National Cybersecurity Alliance, UpEducators, Fundación ANAR, and SaferNet. These partnerships will help train 200,000 families and practitioners in best practices for keeping kids safe and supported online.