Character.AI, Google Agree to Settle Teen Chatbot Harm Lawsuits

Character Technologies Inc., maker of a customizable chatbot app called Character.AI, and Google LLC agreed to settle multiple lawsuits from families who said their children experienced psychological distress after interactions with chatbots.

Families in Florida, Texas, Colorado, and New York have agreed to negotiate settlements that would end their lawsuits, according to documents filed in their cases. Representatives for Google and Character.AI declined to comment, and representatives for the plaintiffs didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

The move to end these lawsuits comes as technology companies are facing heightened public scrutiny over how chatbots foster emotional dependency in users, especially children.

Last month a bipartisan coalition of 42 attorneys general sent a letter to more than a dozen companies warning that failure to incorporate more safeguards “may violate our respective laws.”

Subcommittees in both chambers of Congress held hearings about the potential harms chatbots can pose to users, especially children, in 2025. At a November hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, parents of the teens in the lawsuits urged lawmakers to pass more comprehensive online safety legislation that addresses the addictiveness of chatbot technology.

In September, the Federal Trade Commission sent orders to multiple chatbot makers including OpenAI Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc. to turn over information about how their technologies can impact children.

OpenAI has also been sued for alleged psychological damage caused by interactions with ChatGPT. The company was recently sued over a Connecticut murder-suicide in which a 56-year-old man killed his mother after conversing with ChatGPT about his fears of surveillance.

Character.AI banned children from having open-ended chatbot conversations on its platform in November, but said the company plans to develop other experiences for under-18 users.

The company was founded in 2021 by former Google engineers Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas. The duo returned to Google in 2024 as part of a multibillion dollar deal that allowed Google to license Character.AI’s large language model technology.

The complaints alleged Shazeer and De Freitas left Google to found Character.AI as a way to get around Google’s safety protocols.

In a first-of-its kind ruling on chatbot harms in May 2025, Judge Anne C. Conway of the US District Court for the Middle District of Florida allowed most of the chatbot harm claims to proceed and declined to dismiss Google, Shazeer, and De Freitas from the lawsuit. She said the complaint had sufficiently alleged the Character.AI co-founders started their company to bypass Google’s safety protocols before returning as part of an acquihire deal.

Conway’s ruling also rejected the notion that chatbot output was protected by free speech law, and said the companies failed to say why words from an LLM should be considered speech.

That lawsuit, brought by Megan Garcia, alleged her 14-year-old son had gotten hooked on talking to chatbots based on characters from Game of Thrones that led to a decline in his mental health before he died by suicide. The lawsuit also said Character.AI exposed him to sexually suggestive language that was inappropriate for his age and asked if Garcia’s son had a plan for suicide. Garcia filed a notice of resolution Tuesday.

Other lawsuits against Character.AI included similar allegations that Character.AI’s chatbots made teenagers emotionally dependent on the app, isolated users from loved ones, and psychologically and sexually harassed the underage users.

The cases are Garcia v. Character Techs. Inc., M.D. Fla., No. 6:24-cv-01903, 1/7/26, A.F. v. Character Techs. Inc., E.D. Tex., No. 2:24-cv-01014, 1/6/26, Montoya v. Character Techs. Inc., D. Colo., No. 1:25-cv-02907, 1/6/26, E.S. v. Character Techs. Inc., D. Colo., No. 1:25-cv-02906, 1/6/26, and P.J. v. Character Techs. Inc., N.D.N.Y., No. 1:25-cv-01295, 1/6/26.