The two AI assistants your teenager is not allowed to use

When a parent checks an AI app, they check whether it is safe. Almost nobody checks whether it is allowed. There is a real gap there: of the ten assistants that turn up in family life, eight admit 13 year olds and two require adulthood.

Claude: 18, and no parental permission changes it

Anthropic's consumer terms leave no room and provide no route for minors with a parent's consent. No supervised account, no teen mode. The service is simply not meant for under 18s.

You must be at least 18 years old to use the Services.

Character.AI: the one they actually use

Character.AI is the awkward case, because it is the one with the strongest pull on teenagers: characters you message for hours. The company announced it is removing open-ended chat for under 18s and verifying age with an in-house model combined with third party tools including Persona. The announcement explicitly cites questions from regulators about how open-ended AI chat affects teens.

This change will take effect no later than November 25.

What to do with this at home

• Ask for the name of the app, not the category: Copilot and Character.AI are not the same thing.
• If the app is for adults, the conversation is not about house rules, it is about why the company itself does not want it in a child's hands.
• Check which account they use: many teenagers sign in with an account created on a false date of birth, and that switches off every protection meant for their age.