Character.AI Reports New Safeguards for Young Users and Families

The AI platform Character.AI has published an account of its ongoing safety work, describing measures that bear directly on how children and teenagers use the service. Among them is the earlier removal of open-ended chat with Characters for users under 18, which the company describes as one of its most significant safety decisions.

The company outlines an approach to detecting signs of distress. It states that its safeguards are designed to consider the surrounding conversation, including signals that emerge gradually over long-running chats rather than in a single message. When such signals are detected, the stated aim is to point users toward real-world support. To this end the company reports partnerships with:

• Koko, a nonprofit providing free, self-guided emotional support tools.
• ThroughLine, which maintains a global directory of crisis and mental health resources directing users to services in their own country.

For younger users, the company describes an in-house age estimation model intended to place people in the correct experience, alongside a Parental Insights tool developed with k-ID. This gives parents and guardians whose email addresses are linked to a teen's account visibility into activity, including a weekly email update.

The company also reports partnerships with ConnectSafely, the Internet Watch Foundation, and StopNCII, and adds new moderation notifications, an appeals process for creators, and blocking controls for users. It states that safety work is never done and that it will continue updating its policies and safeguards.

This report is based on reporting from the Character.AI official blog. The original account is available at https://blog.character.ai/continuing-to-build-upon-our-safety-priorities/.