{"id":152863,"date":"2025-11-25T23:13:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T23:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/152863\/"},"modified":"2025-11-25T23:13:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T23:13:13","slug":"character-ai-will-offer-interactive-stories-to-kids-instead-of-open-ended-chat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/152863\/","title":{"rendered":"Character AI will offer interactive ‘Stories’ to kids instead of open-ended chat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Character.AI announced on Tuesday that it\u2019s launching \u201cStories<\/a>,\u201d a new format that allows users to create interactive fiction that features their favorite characters. The feature comes as an alternative to the company\u2019s chatbots, which are no longer accessible to users under 18 as of this week.<\/p>\n

The change follows growing concerns about the mental health risks of AI chatbots that are available 24\/7 and can initiate conversations with users. Several lawsuits<\/a> have been filed against companies like OpenAI and Character.AI over their alleged role in users\u2019 suicides. Over the past month, Character.AI has been slowly phasing out access for minors, and as of Tuesday, underage users can no longer chat with its AI characters at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cStories offer a guided way to create and explore fiction, in lieu of open-ended chat,\u201d the company said in the blog post. \u201cIt will be offered along with our other multimodal features, so teens can continue engaging with their favorite Characters in a safety-first setting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Interactive fiction has seen a surge in popularity<\/a> over the last few years, so Character.AI\u2019s pivot makes sense. But it may not be enough to satiate users who have become overly dependent<\/a> on the chatbots \u2014 which is all the more reason why Character.AI\u2019s decision to limit chatbot access was warranted.<\/p>\n

On the Character.AI subreddit, reactions are mixed. According to their comments, some teens say that while they\u2019re disappointed, they think it\u2019s ultimately the right move.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so mad about the ban but also so happy because now I can do other things and my addiction might be over finally,\u201d one user who identified themselves as a teenager wrote.<\/p>\n

Another said, \u201cas someone who is under 18 this is just disappointing. but also rightfully so bc people over here my age get addicted to this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Techcrunch event<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t|
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 13-15, 2026\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

It remains to be seen how teens will use the Stories feature, but the format is less psychologically dubious than roleplaying with chatbots. Unlike Stories, chatbots directly interact with users in open-ended conversations and can send unprompted messages even when users aren\u2019t actively using the app. <\/p>\n

Character.AI\u2019s decision to age-gate chatbot access comes at a time when California recently became the first state to regulate<\/a> AI companions. Meanwhile, Senators Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) have introduced a national bill<\/a> that would ban AI companions for minors altogether.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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,\u201d Character.AI CEO Karandeep Anand told TechCrunch<\/a> last month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Character.AI announced on Tuesday that it\u2019s launching \u201cStories,\u201d a new format that allows users to create interactive fiction…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[345,343,344,49866,3483,85,46,125],"class_list":{"0":"post-152863","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-character-ai","12":"tag-chatbots","13":"tag-il","14":"tag-israel","15":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}