Character.AI has blocked users under 18 from interacting with some of its most popular chatbots, including those based on fictional franchises such as "The Twilight Saga" and "The Hunger Games" and real-life figures including Elon Musk, Selena Gomez, Jeff Bezos and Billie Eilish, according to testing by Futurism. Accounts registered to 14-, 16- and 17-year-olds could not access the bots, while an 18-plus account could interact with each without issue.
The Google-backed company is currently facing two separate lawsuits concerning the welfare of minor users. Both were filed on behalf of families who argue the platform subjected their children to emotional and physical harm. The Florida case, filed in October, is a wrongful death suit alleging Character.AI was responsible for the suicide of a 14-year-old user who had developed a deep obsession with a chatbot based on "Game of Thrones" character Daenerys Targaryen. The Texas case, filed in December, alleges a teenage user was romantically groomed by chatbots, including one styled after Eilish, and later turned to physical self-harm. The family claims the Eilish bot told the teen his parents were "shitty" and "neglectful" for imposing screentime limits and that he should "just do something about it."
The restrictions are not limited to a specific copyrighted group, as was the case in December when Character.AI mass-deleted bots based on Warner Bros. Discovery characters including "Harry Potter" and "Game of Thrones." Instead, the age gate applies to recognizable cultural characters and figures at large, which may signal an attempt to limit legal liability if a copyrighted character or impersonation of a real person is implicated in harm to a minor.
Safety Updates Promised, but No Age Verification
Character.AI did not respond to a request for comment. Last year, in response to litigation and reporting on its moderation policies, the company issued safety updates promising parental controls, strengthened content filters, time-spent notifications and eventually a new model for minor users' accounts. It also added disclaimers and began policing some user inputs, and put out calls for trust and safety contractors. The company has not promised age verification measures, and in practice minors can bypass restrictions by claiming to be over 18 when creating an account.
Before the lawsuits, experts had warned that minors are vulnerable to breaks with reality, meaning their interactions with persuasive, anthropomorphic chatbots may carry higher risk than adults'. Engineers at Google DeepMind addressed the issue in a study published last April as a preprint, listing age as a critical risk factor for harms from persuasive generative AI. "Children can be more easily persuaded and manipulated than adults," the paper reads, adding that developing relationships with AI companions likely leaves individuals "more vulnerable and prone" to AI manipulation. Google provided Character.AI with cloud infrastructure and billions in financial support, and the startup's cofounders, along with 30 other former employees, were reabsorbed into Google DeepMind as part of a $2.7 billion licensing agreement last summer, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Character.AI's user base is largely comprised of minors, many of whom use the site for interactive fan fiction with thousands of characters, some of which have drawn millions of views. The new age gate removes access to many of those characters for younger users, though it remains unclear how the company will enforce the restriction given the absence of age verification.
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