Social RoboticsCharacter.AI ends open-ended chatbot conversations for under-18s
The companion chatbot platform said it would phase out open chat for minors by 25 November and pivot to role-play features.
Character.AI announced that users under 18 would lose access to open-ended chats with its AI characters, with daily limits shrinking to zero by 25 November 2025. Chief executive Karandeep Anand described a shift away from AI companionship towards a role-playing and storytelling platform, backed by behavioural age checks and ID verification as a fallback. The move followed lawsuits over teenagers who died by suicide after prolonged chatbot use, and growing regulatory pressure. It was one of the clearest signs yet that companion AI for children faces a reckoning, a debate that extends to social robots built on the same models.
Source: TechCrunch
This archive entry summarises reporting published elsewhere; follow the source link for the full story. The summary was drafted with AI from that reporting.