Meta To Temporarily Pause AI Character Access for Teens as Company Develops New Version With Enhanced Parental Controls

Menlo Park, January 24: Meta has announced a temporary pause on the ability for teenagers to interact with its AI characters. The social media giant is currently developing a new iteration of these digital personalities, which aims to provide a more refined experience and integrate robust safety features. This decision comes as part of a broader update to the company’s safety protocols and parental oversight tools for artificial intelligence.

The suspension of teen access is scheduled to take effect in the coming weeks. According to Meta, the move is a strategic shift to ensure that parental controls are built directly into the next generation of AI characters rather than retrofitting them onto the current, outgoing version. The company stated that it is prioritising the development of these new models to meet the specific safety demands of parents and guardians. Instagram New Update: Meta-Owned Platform’s Teen Accounts To Follow PG-13 Guidelines by Default.

Meta AI Safety Controls for Teens

A spokesperson for the company, Sophie Vogel, confirmed that the decision was made to avoid duplicating developmental efforts. Instead of building parental controls twice—once for the current characters and again for the upcoming version—the company will focus its resources on the new iteration. Once the updated AI characters are launched, they will be released with built-in parental management features from the start.

This development follows feedback from parents who expressed a desire for greater transparency regarding their children's digital interactions. TechCrunch reported that Meta acknowledged the need for parents to have more insights and control over one-on-one conversations between teenagers and AI entities, leading to the current overhaul of the system.

Meta's Teen AI Interaction Features

The initiative builds upon plans first detailed in October, which outlined several upcoming features for the Meta AI assistant and its various character personas. Under the proposed system, parents will eventually have the ability to block specific AI characters or disable one-on-one chats entirely. Furthermore, Meta intends to provide parents with summaries or insights regarding the topics their teenagers discuss with the AI.

While the ability to block characters was originally slated for early this year, the company is still refining the mechanism for sharing conversational insights with parents. Meta has confirmed that this specific feature for the Meta AI assistant remains in development and is "coming soon," though no exact date has been provided for the rollout of the new teen-accessible version.

Instagram Parental Oversight

This update is part of a series of changes Meta has implemented over the past year to age-gate content and interactions. Last October, the company adjusted Instagram teen accounts to ensure that the content visible to younger users is more closely aligned with media ratings suitable for those aged 13 and older. Meta Teen Safety Update: Instagram Announces Next Phase of Teenage Safety Initiatives in India, Coming to Facebook and Messenger Later This Year.

The pause in AI character access reflects the ongoing challenge tech companies face in balancing innovation with safety. By halting the service temporarily, Meta aims to address privacy and safety concerns before the next phase of its AI deployment. For now, the characters will remain available to adult users while the teen-specific safeguards are finalised.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jan 24, 2026 07:07 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).