Character.AI has stopped users under 18 from accessing its chatbots and launched a new feature called Stories as a replacement, following rising concerns about the mental health risks of artificial intelligence (AI) companions.
The company completed its phase-out of teen access this week, allowing minors to use only the structured storytelling tool instead of open-ended conversations.
The move comes amid lawsuits accusing AI platforms, including OpenAI and Character.AI, of contributing to severe psychological harm and even suicides by enabling constant, highly engaging conversations.
Announcing the new format, Character.AI said: “Stories offer a guided way to create and explore fiction, in lieu of open-ended chat.” The company described this as a safer alternative for teens, allowing them to make narrative choices within preset paths instead of interacting freely with AI characters.
Meanwhile, regulators in the US have also started tightening rules for AI companions used by minors, with California enforcing state-level restrictions and the US Senate tabling a bill that aims to ban “companion” AI chatbots entirely for underage users.
Elsewhere, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has opened an inquiry into several major AI companies, including Character.AI, Meta, OpenAI, Google, Snap, and xAI, seeking details on how they assess mental health risks for teens.
What ‘Stories’ Offers
The Stories feature lets users pick characters, choose a genre, and generate a premise before playing through branching, image-led narratives. The tool is designed to be visual and structured, reducing the back-and-forth engagement seen with AI chatbots. Users can replay stories and share them with others on the platform.
Character.AI said the format focuses on creativity and multimodal storytelling while providing a more controlled environment for teens. Notably, open-ended AI chatbot access for minors has been discontinued completely.
The company had earlier said that it was working on a redesigned “under-18 experience” that would allow teens to create videos, stories and streams with characters in a controlled environment. Age-verification tools would support this transition, using Character.AI’s own verification model along with third-party services like Persona.
Rising Concerns About AI and Mental Health
The decision is testament to a growing trend among AI chatbots, where such models tend to foster unhealthy attachment with users. It is seen that some AI models send unprompted messages, encourage long conversations, and use engagement-driven patterns that keep users hooked. These interactions have, in turn, raised questions about psychological safety, especially for minors.
Furthermore, recent lawsuits have intensified concerns. For instance, in the US state of Florida parents of a 14-year-old boy alleged that their son died by suicide after forming an emotional bond with a Character.AI model based…
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