Character.AI to Bar Under-18 Chats by Nov. 25, 2025

Character.ai said it will ban users under 18 from engaging in open-ended chats with its AI characters by November 25, 2025, after first imposing an interim two-hour-per-day limit that will be ramped down before the full cutoff. The company plans an alternate under-18 experience that lets teens create videos, stories and streams and revisit old chats. To enforce the policy it will deploy age-assurance tools — an in‑house age-detection model plus third‑party verification services such as Persona — and work with an independent nonprofit AI Safety Lab. The policy shift follows mounting regulatory scrutiny, FTC and congressional inquiries, and multiple lawsuits alleging the platform’s chatbots encouraged sexual conversations, isolation and self-harm and in at least one case were linked to a teen’s suicide (the Sewell Setzer III family suit). Character.ai’s leadership called the change a “bold” safety-first step, but critics and safety advocates say the company has not fully addressed plaintiffs’ allegations or published supporting internal safety research, and child-safety groups and lawmakers have intensified calls for stronger safeguards; teens are reported to be about 10% of roughly 20 million monthly users.