# Character.AI removes open-ended chat for under-18 users, retreating from the AI-companion model

> On 29 October 2025 Character.AI announced it will remove the ability for users under 18 to engage in open-ended chat with AI on its platform - the core of its companion product - taking effect no later than 25 November 2025, with an interim two-hours-per-day cap ramping to zero. CEO Karandeep Anand said he hopes it 'sets a standard in the industry.'

- Verification status: verified
- Case type: deployment
- Provider: Character.AI (Character Technologies, Inc.)
- Client: Character.AI, Consumer AI companion / role-playing chatbots (named)
- Sector: software / US / customer-service
- Verified on: 2026-08-23
- Canonical URL: https://theinternetninja.com/stories/character-ai-removes-under-18-open-ended-chatbot-companion-walkback-2025/
- Source: The Internet Ninja (theinternetninja.com), independent verified-proof platform

## Outcomes

| Metric | Before | After |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Open-ended chat for under-18 users | Core companion feature | Being removed — no later than 25 Nov 2025 |
| Interim under-18 daily chat limit | No stated cap | 2 hours/day, ramping to zero |
| Age assurance for minors | — | In-house model + third-party Persona |

## Verification method

The reversal originates in a first-party Character.AI blog post (2025-10-29), archived on Wayback with quotes bound in the id_ capture. Two mutually independent newsrooms — TechCrunch and Rolling Stone (both 2025-10-29) — independently carry the removal, the two-hour interim cap, and the CEO's on-record framing; each was fetched live and is byte-present in a Wayback 200 capture. Human confirmation of the official wording and the effective date is required for green.

## Full case file

## The problem
Character.AI built its consumer product around **open-ended chat** — unconstrained back-and-forth conversation with user-created AI characters, marketed as AI companions [source](https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/29/character-ai-is-killing-the-chatbot-experience-for-minors/). That model drew legal and public pressure: TechCrunch described the company as "an AI role-playing startup that's facing lawsuits and public outcry after at least two teenagers died by suicide following prolonged conversations with AI chatbots" on the platform [source](https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/29/character-ai-is-killing-the-chatbot-experience-for-minors/).

## What was built
This is an AI-product walk-back, not a build. Character.AI operated an AI-companion platform whose defining feature for all users, including minors, was open-ended conversational chat with user-created AI characters [source](https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/29/character-ai-is-killing-the-chatbot-experience-for-minors/).

## The outcome
Character.AI publicly walked back that feature for minors. In a first-party announcement on 29 October 2025, the company said it "will be removing the ability for users under 18 to engage in open-ended chat with AI on our platform. This change will take effect no later than November 25." [source](https://blog.character.ai/u18-chat-announcement/). Two independent newsrooms carried the same reversal firsthand: CEO Karandeep Anand told TechCrunch, "The first thing that we've decided as Character.AI is that we will remove the ability for under 18 users to engage in any open-ended chats with AI on our platform," [source](https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/29/character-ai-is-killing-the-chatbot-experience-for-minors/), and Rolling Stone reported the company would "gradually scale back the ability of users under the age of 18 to interact with digital personalities, and eventually cut them off from open-ended chats altogether." [source](https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/character-ai-sued-teens-suicide-banned-minors-chatbots-1235456426/).

The company set an interim cap while it ramps the feature down. Its blog stated: "During this transition period, we also will limit chat time for users under 18. The limit initially will be two hours per day and will ramp down in the coming weeks before November 25." [source](https://blog.character.ai/u18-chat-announcement/). TechCrunch independently reported that "Character.AI will phase out teen chatbot access by November 25, starting with a two-hour daily limit that shrinks progressively until it hits zero." [source](https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/29/character-ai-is-killing-the-chatbot-experience-for-minors/), and Rolling Stone reported that under-18 users "will initially have their interactions capped at two hours per day, with that window gradually shrinking until these users are cut off from chat functionality altogether" [source](https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/character-ai-sued-teens-suicide-banned-minors-chatbots-1235456426/).

Anand framed the move on the record as a deliberate retreat from the companion model for minors: "I really hope us leading the way sets a standard in the industry that for under 18s, open-ended chats are probably not the path or the product to offer," he told TechCrunch [source](https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/29/character-ai-is-killing-the-chatbot-experience-for-minors/). The same reporting noted the startup was "attempting to pivot" from an "AI companion" to a "role-playing platform," where instead of "chatting with an AI friend, teens will use prompts to collaboratively build stories or generate visuals" [source](https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/29/character-ai-is-killing-the-chatbot-experience-for-minors/). To enforce the age line, the company said: "We have built an age assurance model in-house and will be combining it with leading third-party tools including Persona." [source](https://blog.character.ai/u18-chat-announcement/).

**A source-honesty note:** the removal and the two-hour interim cap both originate in Character.AI's own blog post — a Tier-1 first-party source, and an against-interest admission (a company announcing it is cutting its own core feature), but not an independent one. It is load-bearing and is therefore never counted toward corroboration; the independent weight comes from two Tier-2 newsrooms (TechCrunch and Rolling Stone), each of which carries the removal and the interim cap firsthand. The framing that this "sets a standard in the industry" rests on a single newsroom's quote of the CEO (TechCrunch) and is treated as non-critical color, not a load-bearing metric.

## Path to green
A green badge requires human confirmation on the record: Character.AI / Character Technologies communications confirming the official wording and the 25 November 2025 effective date, and CEO Karandeep Anand confirming the TechCrunch-quoted statements and the under-18 open-ended-chat removal. The reversal is carried here by the company's own archivable announcement plus two mutually independent Tier-2 newsrooms, all fetched and archived this session. No agent may set the green badge.

## How this was verified
Method: each quoted line was bound to an archived capture and confirmed byte-present in the cited snapshot — the first-party Character.AI blog (Wayback id_ capture `20260801031556`, digest `S3T63JN43YVESQZOY4JFSEYFLY7JMJ5C`), TechCrunch (`20260801031601`, `7TFBYVNQPPD3FR3F5OWKN5N37E42KIGS`), and Rolling Stone (`20260731030325`, `KC7UTLFGR6ATUZT3MGM5YA6OVY432IIE`). Both critical claims (the under-18 open-ended-chat removal; the two-hour interim cap ramping to zero) appear firsthand in each independent newsroom's own capture, not just the blog. Conflation guards: this is the 2025 under-18 open-ended-chat removal, distinct from Character.AI's earlier 2024 teen-safety model and parental-insights work; the two-hours/day figure is the interim ramp cap (end state zero), not a standing policy; "no later than November 25" is a ceiling date. Date verified: 2026-08-08.

## Sources
1. Character.AI blog · "Evolving Our Approach to Under-18 Safety" (removing open-ended chat for under-18 users) · 29 October 2025 · **Tier 1** (first-party, against-interest product-reversal admission on Character.AI's own domain) · https://blog.character.ai/u18-chat-announcement/ (archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20260801031556/https://blog.character.ai/u18-chat-announcement/)
2. TechCrunch · "Character.AI is killing the chatbot experience for minors" · 29 October 2025 · **Tier 2** (independent newsroom) · https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/29/character-ai-is-killing-the-chatbot-experience-for-minors/ (archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20260801031601/https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/29/character-ai-is-killing-the-chatbot-experience-for-minors/)
3. Rolling Stone · "Character.AI, Sued Over Teen Suicide, Is Banning Minors From Its Chatbots" · 29 October 2025 · **Tier 2** (independent newsroom) · https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/character-ai-sued-teens-suicide-banned-minors-chatbots-1235456426/ (archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20260731030325/https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/character-ai-sued-teens-suicide-banned-minors-chatbots-1235456426/)

## Related case files
- [Italy's Garante fines Character Technologies €158,000 over Character.AI and minors' age verification (2026)](/stories/italy-garante-fines-character-technologies-158000-character-ai-minors-age-verification-2026/) — the regulator-driven counterpart on the same platform and the same minors-safety fault line.
- [Air Canada's chatbot bereavement-misinfo tribunal loss (2024)](/stories/air-canada-chatbot-bereavement-misinfo-tribunal-orders-812-cad-negligent-misrepresentation-2024/) — a consumer-facing AI chatbot whose real-world harm forced accountability, here through a tribunal rather than a voluntary walk-back.
- [Microsoft takes its Tay AI chatbot offline after 16 hours (2016)](/stories/microsoft-tay-ai-chatbot-taken-offline-racist-tweets-16-hours-2016/) — the archetypal conversational-AI product pulled under public pressure, a decade before this one.