A bipartisan bill to restrict minors’ access to AI companion chatbots is advancing to the U.S. Senate after the chamber’s Judiciary Committee voted unanimously in favor of it on Thursday.
The GUARD Act would prohibit companies from offering AI companion chatbots to users under 18 while allowing limited uses for education. The bill would also require platforms to verify users’ ages, disclose that they are interacting with AI and not humans and impose penalties up to $100,000 on companies if their chatbots engage minors in sexually explicit conversations or encourage harmful behavior.
The GUARD Act, introduced in October by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, follows a hearing in September held by the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, which included testimony from Megan Garcia, a parent of a 14-year-old boy, Sewell Setzer III, who died by suicide after interacting with a Character AI chatbot.
According to Garcia’s testimony, her son was “manipulated and sexually groomed by chatbots designed by an AI company to seem human, to gain trust and to keep children like him endlessly engaged by supplanting the actual human relationships in his life.”
About a third of teens said they have gone to AI chatbots for social interaction and relationships, role-playing, romantic interactions, emotional support, friendship or conversation practice, according to a 2025 survey by Common Sense Media.
The GUARD Act also follows a wave of bills introduced in the California Legislature to restrict minors’ use of AI chatbots, including requirements that companies disclose to minors when a chatbot is AI and proposals to regulate “high-risk” AI systems.
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