Quick answer: on November 25, 2025, Character AI removed open-ended chat for every user under 18. Minors kept Stories, video, and pre-made scenes, and they lost the free-form back-and-forth that made the app what it was. The company added age checks (an in-house model plus the third-party service Persona) to decide who gets adult access. If you are an adult who wants open-ended character chat with memory, you can start one right now on ChatBrat, free, in your browser, no install.
That is the headline. Below is the full picture: exactly what the policy took away, the lawsuits and regulators that forced it, and the checklist adults are using to pick where they go next.
What did Character AI change for under-18 users?
The rollout came in stages. Character AI first capped daily chat time for minors, then reduced that cap toward zero, and on November 25, 2025 it switched off open-ended chat for under-18 accounts entirely. What a teen account can still do is narrow and scripted:
Gone: free-form, back-and-forth conversation with any character. The core loop of the product, the thing people opened the app for, is off the table for minors.
Kept: Stories (a guided, choose-the-next-beat format), AvatarFX video, and pre-created scenes that the safety team has already cleared. A teen can watch and steer curated content. They cannot sit down and talk to a character the way they used to.
New gate: age assurance. Character AI runs an in-house model that guesses your age from behavior, backed by Persona for document or face checks when the model is unsure. Clear the check as an adult and open-ended chat comes back. Fail it and you stay in the scripted lane.
Why did Character AI remove chat for minors?
Legal and regulatory pressure, not a product decision. Character AI faced wrongful-death lawsuits tied to teen users and a wave of child-safety scrutiny from lawmakers and advocates through 2025. Pulling open-ended chat for minors was the company's way to lower its risk while age verification matured.
Read the trend line and it points one direction. A platform under that kind of legal exposure tightens its rules over time and rarely loosens them. The 2026 story for Character AI is a series of the same move: the full-screen ads added inside chats, the moderation sweeps that deleted user bots with no export, and now the age wall. For a fuller safety picture aimed at families, see our guide on whether Character AI is safe for teenagers.
Is Character AI shutting down?
No. Character AI is still the largest app in the category, with tens of millions of monthly users and a community library that took years to build. Adults who verify their age keep the full open-ended experience. The app is not closing. It changed who it serves and how, and a large block of its younger audience aged into frustration or left for platforms that still let them talk freely.
Where are adults going after the age restriction?
The searches tell the story. Interest in Character AI alternatives broke out in 2026, and adults comparing options tend to grade every candidate on the same four things. Here is the checklist, with how Character AI in 2026 and ChatBrat stack up:
| What adults check | Why it matters | Character AI (2026) | ChatBrat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open-ended chat | The whole point: talk freely, no rails | Adults only, behind age checks | Open to every verified adult, free |
| Persistent memory, free | Memory is the top quality lever in roleplay | Enhanced memory gated behind c.ai+ | Core feature, free tier |
| No in-chat ads | Interstitials break the scene you are in | Full-screen ads inside chats | Ad-free by design |
| Own and export your work | The purge lesson: no export means no ownership | No export button | Built in |
One honest trade-off: nothing matches Character AI's raw library size, because 10M-plus community characters accumulate over years. If an endless browse feed is the product for you, weigh that. For most people the draw was a good conversation that remembers them, and that is what a landing spot needs to nail. ChatBrat was built around exactly this checklist: open-ended chat with persistent memory, no ads, and full ownership, on the free tier.
Start an open-ended chat now
How to move your characters without losing them
1. Save your definitions first
Character AI has no official export, so copy each character's description, greeting, and a few lines of example dialogue by hand. Do it before you need it. The next moderation sweep will not warn you.
2. Rebuild your top two or three, not all of them
Paste the personality into the ChatBrat character creator, seed the memory with a short paragraph of your shared history, and run it for a week. Most people keep three characters they actually care about.
3. Test the memory on day seven
Mention three specific facts on day one, then reference them sideways a week later. A real replacement recalls the detail, not just the gist. Want a scene instead of a blank box? Try an AI roleplay chat with a written setup, or browse character archetypes to pick a personality that fits.
Skip the checklist. Feel the difference.
The fastest way to know if a platform earned your roster is to spin up one chat. Most people notice inside ten minutes.
Build your character on ChatBrat →Frequently asked questions
Can under-18 users still use Character AI?
Why did Character AI ban open-ended chat for minors?
What is the best Character AI alternative for adults in 2026?
Does the age verification use real ID?
Is Character AI shutting down?
Ready to talk to a character that remembers you? Browse the ChatBrat library, drop into a written scenario, or create your own. Free, in your browser, with memory that sticks.
Garret Williams is the founder and CEO of chatbrat.ai, building at the frontier of AI companions and roleplay chatbots. Before pivoting to tech, the Michigan native studied marketing at UCLA and directed acclaimed film projects—including his TV pilot Self-Care (nominated for Best TV Episodic at the 2023 Mammoth Film Festival) and Eco-Riot (featured on MasterClass). He writes The Bratlog to document the uncharted territory of AI relationships, sharing real-time lessons and tackling the open questions nobody has answered yet.