Character.AI’s response went beyond retraining its chatbots. In October 2024, it described model training and planned safeguards for minors. A year later, it announced that it would remove under-18 users’ access to open-ended chats with Characters. In a September 2026 update, the company said that removal was complete, while describing other creative features and safety measures that remain available or in development.
What changed for teen users?
Character.AI’s most consequential change was a restriction on the type of interaction available to under-18 users: the company says it removed their access to open-ended chat with Characters. That is different from retraining a chatbot to make its replies safer. Character.AI also describes other safeguards and non-chat features for teens, so its policy is not a stated ban on every use of the platform.
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The distinction matters: “retraining” can suggest that the same open-ended conversations continued with a modified model. The company’s later policy instead removed that form of chat for under-18 users. Its statements describe the policy and its own safety practices; they do not independently establish how well those measures prevent harm.
How Character.AI’s response unfolded
| Date | What Character.AI said | What that means |
|---|---|---|
| October 22, 2024 | It said it was continually training its language model to follow content policies and listed planned changes for users under 18, including measures intended to reduce the likelihood of sensitive or suggestive content. It also described improved detection and intervention for rule-breaking inputs, an AI-not-a-real-person disclaimer, and time-spent notices. Character.AI’s October 2024 safety post. | Model and content safeguards were the focus; the company was not yet announcing the later removal of open-ended chat. |
| October 29, 2025 | It announced plans to remove open-ended chat for under-18 users. The help-center announcement said a transition would begin November 24, starting with a daily chat limit of two hours and decreasing over subsequent weeks; comparable changes in other countries were expected over following months. Character.AI’s help-center announcement. | This was a policy change to access, not just a change to how a model answered. |
| November 21, 2025 | Character.AI described a staged U.S. rollout: the first group would begin losing open-ended chat on November 24, with a second group weeks later and at least two weeks’ notice. It also described age assurance, notices to parents enrolled in Parental Insights, links to support and creative resources, and plans for teen experiences involving Feed, Imagine, Avatar FX, and Streams. Character.AI’s rollout update. | The announcement set out a phased transition and described features intended to remain part of teen use. |
| September 3, 2026 | Character.AI said it had removed open-ended chat with Characters for under-18 users the prior year. It also described age assurance and age estimation, continuing work on self-harm detection and response, weekly parental insight emails for connected parents or guardians, and creative features including Series, Feed, and Comics. Character.AI’s September 2026 safety update. | This is the company’s later description of the restriction as implemented; it is not an independent evaluation of the safeguards. |
Can under-18 users still use Character.AI?
Character.AI’s updates describe continued access to creative and community features, rather than a complete platform ban. Its November 2025 rollout post named Feed, Imagine, Avatar FX, and Streams as features it planned to build teen experiences around. Its September 2026 update listed Series, Feed, and Comics among creative features.
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Those lists are tied to announcements at different dates; they should not be read as a guarantee that every feature is available to every teen user, in every country, or unchanged today. Character.AI’s current teen-safety page describes an under-18 experience with more conservative classifiers and a narrower set of Characters than the adult experience.
What did “retraining” mean in 2024?
In its October 22, 2024 post, Character.AI wrote: “We are continually training the large language model (LLM) that powers the Characters on the platform to adhere to these policies.” It also described planned minor-specific model changes intended to reduce the likelihood of sensitive or suggestive content, alongside detection, intervention, disclaimers, and time-spent notices.
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That statement is evidence of what the company said it was doing, not proof that training eliminated inappropriate outputs. The later decision to remove open-ended chat addressed access to a type of interaction, rather than relying only on the model to produce safer replies within it.
What safeguards and support does the company describe?
- Teen-specific content controls: Character.AI says under-18 users have more conservative classifiers and a narrower set of Characters than adults.
- Age-related measures: The company describes age assurance and age estimation. The announcements do not publish independent accuracy measurements for these systems.
- Parental Insights: Character.AI says connected parents or guardians receive weekly insight emails; its 2025 rollout update also described notices to enrolled parents during the transition.
- Support resources: The November 2025 update said the company’s links drew on ThroughLine’s verified helpline network, which it described as covering 1,500 helpline services across 170 countries, with many services specifically for teens. That is a company-reported directory/network figure, not a measure of safety outcomes.
- Detection and response: Character.AI says it continues work on self-harm detection and response. The cited updates do not establish how accurate or effective that work is.
What is known about the effect of these changes?
The public announcements establish what Character.AI says it changed and what features or safeguards it describes. They do not provide an independent impact study showing that the measures reduced harm, nor do they establish classifier performance or the accuracy of age classification.
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The Associated Press reported on the 2025 announcement and noted that age checks can be imperfect and raise privacy concerns. That general caution does not establish an error rate for Character.AI’s particular system. It is therefore important to distinguish the company’s stated policies from demonstrated safety outcomes.
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