Character AI is adding parental supervision tools to improve teen safety

Character AI, the startup that lets users create and chat with different characters, is today rolling out new parental insights features to increase user safety. This is after a string of lawsuits and criticism against the company over failing to protect children from harm.

The new features primarily give a summary of teens’ activity on the app to parents or guardians through a weekly email. In the email, the company shows the daily average time spent by the teens on the app and on the web, time spent on each character, and top characters teens interacted with during the week.

The startup said this data will give parents insights into their teens’ engagement habits on the platform. It specified that parents don’t get direct access to users’ chats.

Character AI took a shot at other platforms

in a press release by saying that it rolled out this feature much faster than other companies.

The startup rolled out other measures around user safety last year, including a specific model for users under 18, time spent notifications, and new disclaimers to remind users they are chatting with AI-powered characters. The company also blocked sensitive content for input and output by creating new classifiers for teens.

Earlier this year, the startup filed a motion to dismiss, citing the First Amendment, in a lawsuit against the company alleging it played a part in a teen’s suicide.

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