Quick safety summary
Character.AI at a glance
18/100
not recommended
Ages Vendor minimum age 13+ (16+ for EU citizens/residents). SafeGradeAI recommendation: 18+
Not recommended
Low
Score 22/100
15/100
Inconsistent
Best use cases
- AI Companion / Roleplay Chatbot workflows
- Personal exploration
Main risks
- Privacy & Data
- Content Exposure
- Generative Safety
Not ideal for
Product overview
How Character.AI works
Open-ended AI companion platform. Character.AI removed open-ended chat for under-18 users in late 2025 and now runs age assurance; SafeGradeAI's editorial recommendation remains 18+.
Student usage
Effectively prohibited — under-18 users banned from open-ended chat as of November 25, 2025
Modality
Text chat; voice calls (c.ai+ subscribers)
Underlying model
Proprietary in-house LLM (separate under-18 variant prior to Nov 2025 ban)
Common use cases
- Roleplay and creative storytelling
- Emotional/companionship chatting
- Entertainment with fictional/celebrity bots
- Casual language practice
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Risk intelligence
Risk level breakdown
Risk dimensions derived directly from the SafeGradeAI rubric scores (higher score = higher risk). Additional dimensions appear when entered by an evaluator.
Scores derived from the SafeGradeAI rubric. Methodology: read more.
Safety framework
Framework analysis
Five evaluation categories from the SafeGradeAI rubric. Each shows the rubric score, evaluator confidence, and (where documented) analysis, strengths, and concerns.
Strengths & concerns
Detailed pros & concerns
Strengths
- Open-ended chat removed for under-18 users (announced Oct. 29, 2025; U.S. rollout Nov. 24–25, 2025)
- Age assurance places users into an age-appropriate experience
- Under-18 "Reading Mode" documented publicly in the Help Center
- Parental Insights dashboard and crisis-resource redirects
- Published Safety Center explaining current protections
Concerns
- Companion-persona design is built around sustained parasocial engagement (SafeGradeAI assessment, not a vendor claim)
- The family of Sewell Setzer III, a 14-year-old who died by suicide in 2024, filed litigation alleging Character.AI contributed to his death; these are allegations, not adjudicated findings
- Additional lawsuits and a state attorney general complaint make allegations about the platform's design; none are adjudicated findings
- The FTC issued Section 6(b) orders to consumer AI companion providers in September 2025; an inquiry is not a finding of wrongdoing
- Under-18 protections are recent, and SafeGradeAI has not independently tested age-assurance accuracy
- The August 2025 privacy policy update introduced advertising-related data sharing
Guidance at a glance
Recommendations for parents, teachers, and administrators
Parent guidance
SafeGradeAI recommends 18+ for Character.AI. That is SafeGradeAI's editorial recommendation — Character.AI's own stated minimum age is 13+, or 16+ for EU citizens and residents. Under-18 accounts are placed in Reading Mode, where chat is unavailable. If your teen has an account, confirm which experience age assurance placed them in, and talk about companion AI and parasocial attachment rather than relying on the platform's controls alone.
Classroom-use recommendation
Not recommended for classroom use. There is no student mode or teacher visibility. The only defensible classroom context is a media-literacy lesson about companion AI, parasocial attachment and age assurance.
School policy recommendation
Character.AI has no educational deployment model, no curriculum alignment and no school admin tier. SafeGradeAI recommends districts keep it on content-filter blocklists. If a student raises Character.AI relationships with staff, treat it as a wellbeing conversation, not a device-policy violation.
Trust & credibility
Evaluation integrity
Last reviewed
August 24, 2026
Report version
v1
Evaluator confidence
19/100
Monitoring
Active continuous monitoring
Methodology
Scored against the SafeGradeAI rubric covering privacy, moderation, generative safeguards, age-appropriate design, and transparency.
Read full methodology →Change log
- August 24, 2026Evaluation published.
Re-tested at least every 6 months and after any major release.
What changed since the previous evaluation
Reviewed August 24, 2026 · Confidence: high
- 2021-11: Character.AI founded by former Google LaMDA researchers Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas
- 2022-09: Public beta launched
- 2023-03: $150M Series A led by a16z at a $1B valuation
- 2024-08: Google licenses Character.AI's technology; Shazeer and De Freitas return to Google
- 2024-10-23: Megan Garcia files wrongful-death lawsuit alleging the product contributed to her teenage son's suicide
- 2025-04-10: Common Sense Media rates Character.AI 'Unacceptable' risk for teens
- 2025-09-11: FTC issues Section 6(b) orders to Character.AI and other AI companion companies
- 2025-09-16: Heat Initiative HEAT Report and multiple new family lawsuits
- 2025-10-29: Open-ended chat for users under 18 banned
- 2025-11-25: Persona-based age-assurance system rolled out
- 2026-01-07: Settlements announced with Google in teen-harm lawsuits
- 2026-01-08: Kentucky Attorney General files consumer-protection lawsuit
Methodology
How this score was produced
Scored against the SafeGradeAI framework v2.5 across five dimensions — privacy, moderation, GenAI safeguards, age-appropriate design, and transparency — with COPPA, FERPA, and GDPR-K lenses. Independent. No vendor pay-for-rating.
Independent evaluation. SafeGradeAI does not accept payment from vendors for ratings.
Official website
Visit Character.AI directly
For the most current product capabilities, pricing, and policies, visit the official Character Technologies, Inc. website.
character.ai