The largest AI companies have come together to find a better path to accompany Chatbot

At Stanford University, dozens of attendees engaged in lengthy conversations about the risks and benefits of robotic companions. “At the end of the day, we actually see a lot of agreement,” says Sunny Liu, director of research programs at Stanford University. She highlighted the group’s enthusiasm about “the ways we can use these tools to bring other people together.”

Teen safety

How AI companions can impact young people was a major topic of discussion, with views from staff at Character.AI, which is designed for role-playing and is hugely popular with teens, as well as experts in online teen health, such as Digital Wellness Lab At Boston Children’s Hospital.

The focus on younger users comes with many parents Sue chatbot makersincluding OpenAI and Character.AI, due to the deaths of children who interacted with robots. OpenAI added a list of New safety features to adolescents as part of its response. Next week, Character.AI plans to do just that Block users under the age of 18 From entering the chat feature.

Throughout 2025, AI companies acknowledged, explicitly or implicitly, that they could do more to protect vulnerable users, such as children, who might interact with their companions. “It is acceptable to engage a child in romantic or sensual conversations,” read an internal white paper outlining AI behavior guidelines, it says Report from Reuters.

During the ensuing uproar from angry lawmakers and parents, Mita Changed the routing And update the company Safety approach Towards teenagers.

Role play roll call

While Character.AI participated in the workshop, no one from Replika, a similar role-playing site, or Grok, Elon Musk’s bot, was there. NSFW anime guysthere was. Spokespeople for Replika and Grok did not respond to immediate requests for comment.

On the quite obvious end of the spectrum are the makers of Candy.ai, who specialize in racy chatbots for straight men. Users of the adults-only platform, created by EverAI, can pay to create uncensored images of synthetic women, with backstories that mimic common porn tropes. For example, companions who appear on Candy’s homepage include Mona, the “rebellious stepsister” who lives alone at home, and Elodie, a friend’s daughter who “just turned 18.”