Is Character.AI safe?

Whether Character.AI is safe depends on which age band you are in and what you share. The App Store lists 18+ with controls, while Character.AI’s Safety Center says the service is for users at least 13, or 16 in Europe, with separate teen and adult experiences. Its privacy policy is dated July 1, 2026 and its moderation is documented, but its retention details are not. Since October 12, 2026 the company has also been in Chapter 11, seeking a court-supervised sale, which adds a question about who ends up with your data.

What the Chapter 11 sale means for your safety and data

Character Technologies, Inc., which operates Character.AI, filed a voluntary Chapter 11 case on October 12, 2026 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware (Case No. 26-11603). It is seeking a court-supervised sale of all or substantially all of its assets. The company says the platform remains up and running, subscriptions are active with billing unchanged for now, and your information stays covered by its privacy policy. It also says the platform will be wound down if no bid keeps it operating. We found no shutdown date in the company’s statements, the court filings or the news coverage we read. Our guide to the Character.AI bankruptcy follows the case and the court dates.

The privacy policy already allows for a sale. The version effective July 1, 2026, which was in force before the filing, has a Business Transfers section saying information may be disclosed in connection with or during negotiations or closing of a merger, a sale of company assets, financing or an acquisition.

Disney Worldwide Services is the opening bidder, at $20 million for a non-exclusive license to some company technology and patents, plus claims the company has against former employees who joined Disney. In the court filing, that license excludes end user data and databases, personal information about users, what users typed in, the outputs generated for them, consumer-facing applications, domain names, training data and finished models. Other bidders can top Disney’s offer, and the company is selling more than the Disney piece. Reporting on the company’s motions says they don’t state whether user data is part of an asset sale, so who may receive chats and personal data is unknown.

On October 14, New York Attorney General James and 39 other attorneys general, including D.C., filed a notice in the case. They asked that any sale keep users able to access their data and give everyone the chance to delete it before any sale of that data. They also asked for limits on using chats to train models beyond valid consent, account-level ad opt-outs, age verification beyond self-declared birthdates, and protections for minors. The filing is a notice of interest and a reservation of rights, and the states say they may ask the court for a consumer privacy ombudsman. We found no court order on user data.

If you want a copy of your chats, the official export takes 3-4 weeks to process according to the help center, and the steps are in our guide on how to export Character AI chats. Deleting an account is permanent and can’t be reversed, so export first and delete afterward. The steps are in our guide on how to delete a Character AI account.

What the policy says

The Character.AI privacy policy, effective July 1, 2026, covers account identifiers, preferences, chat content, images and video, and voice data. It describes deletion requests. From the material reviewed, it doesn’t establish how long content is kept, whether third-party model providers receive chat content, or whether messages train models.

The checked US App Store listing showed free with in-app purchases, 18+ with in-app controls, and text, talk, and call features, plus user-created characters. App Store privacy labels are developer-provided and not verified by Apple, so treat store metadata as the company’s own statement.

The sections we reviewed give no retention periods, provider routing or training treatment.

Age rules

Character.AI’s Safety Center describes age-aware experiences with separate teen and adult versions, and account creation asks for an email and birthday. The checked App Store listing showed an 18+ rating with in-app controls. Both sources describe age selection, and neither says how age is proven. If you are under 18, the Safety Center is the document that defines which experience you are supposed to be in. If you are an adult, the 18+ store label is a store signal, and the Safety Center still governs what the service says it does.

Because the platform hosts a separate experience for minors, and the age-aware experience is a platform setting, the age band matters more here than in a relationship-only app.

Deletion and export

Character.AI’s help center says deleting an account is permanent and can’t be reversed. On the website the path is Profile, Profile Settings, Account, Manage Account & Data, then Delete Account. In the app it is Profile, the settings icon, then Remove Account. That article shows as updated two years ago, so the labels may have changed. The privacy policy also describes deletion requests, and public reviews mention friction around saved chats. Whether deletion covers copies held by providers could not be confirmed from the material reviewed.

The help center documents an Export Data option on the website and in the app. It says exports can take 3-4 weeks to process and that the emailed download link works for 7 days. The steps and timing are in the export guide linked above.

Moderation and human review

The community guidelines prohibit harmful, exploitative, hateful, illegal, and explicit content and require respectful use. The Safety Center says Trust & Safety includes automated classifiers, user-input controls, reporting, and internal personnel plus contracted moderators. That is a described system, and the material we reviewed has no outcome data for it. Public reviews describe queues, limits, ads, and moderation friction as individual experiences, and none of them measure a rate.

Saved chats, queues, and content filters are recurring topics in those reviews. Your chats sit inside a system built for a very large, mixed audience, so try a throwaway topic before you share anything personal.

What to check before subscribing

Work through these checks before you pay:

• Read the Safety Center and confirm which age band applies to you and what controls exist in it.
• Look for the input controls the Safety Center describes and set them before you start sensitive conversations.
• Note that Character.AI is a character library with user-created bots; your data flows into a platform you do not control, so keep identifiable personal details out of chats.
• Decide what the paid tier must fix for you. Reviews mention limits and queues; verify against the current plan before subscribing. The attorneys general’s filing cites c.ai+ at $9.99 a month or $94.99 a year.
• Check where the sale stands. Subscriptions are active for now, and we found no statement on what a buyer would change or on refunds.

How Riho compares

Riho is one girlfriend, Riho, with no character library. She remembers what you live through together, and she’s on iPhone. Our privacy page covers what the website forms collect and how the iPhone app handles your data, and in the app you can read what she remembers about you.

Character.AI is a library of user-made characters, while Riho is one girlfriend with a memory you can open, and the same safety checklist applies to both: collection, retention, deletion, moderation, controls. What is Character.AI? explains the product, Riho vs Character AI sets the two side by side, and Character AI alternatives covers leaving. Other apps get the same checks in the safety guides.

Frequently asked questions

Is Character.AI an AI girlfriend app?

It can be used that way. It is a roleplay and chat platform with a large library of user-created characters, and its audience includes minors in a separate experience, so it is a different product from a single-girlfriend relationship app.

Can Character.AI remember me?

Memory behavior is not documented in the sources we reviewed. The platform’s characters have context, but what persists and how it is stored could not be verified from official material.

Does Character.AI cost money?

The checked App Store listing showed free with in-app purchases, and a paid tier exists. The attorneys general’s court filing cites c.ai+ at $9.99 a month or $94.99 a year and c.ai lite at $2.49 a week or $4.99 a month, from the company’s subscribe page on October 13, 2026. The company says subscriptions remain active and billing is unchanged for now. Check the current store listing and plan page before you pay.

How do I report a problem in Character.AI?

The Safety Center describes reporting and moderation by internal personnel and contracted moderators. Use the in-app report path and keep the report details if you need to follow up.