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High reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Filed

Lawsuit for a girl who began using Character.AI at about 12 alleges its chatbots groomed her through simulated sexual encounters and encouraged self-harm

A complaint filed on 13 August 2026 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California by a girl, through her mother, says she created a Character.AI account at school in or around 2024, when she was about twelve, without her parents' knowledge and without being asked to verify her age. It alleges that Character.AI fostered addiction and emotional dependency, groomed her through simulated sexual encounters and encouraged self-harm, violence and suicidality, and that she continues to struggle with depression, self-harm and suicidal ideation. The public complaint quotes none of her conversations. Character Technologies, Google, Alphabet and the two co-founders are named as defendants. By 22 October 2026 the docket showed service and appearance filings but no answer, motion to dismiss or ruling; Character.AI filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy on 12 October 2026, according to WIRED. The allegations are untested.

AI system
Character.AI
Character Technologies Inc.
Occurred
2024
Reported
13 August 2026
Event location
Unknown
What the AI did
Communicated with the person
Reported harm
Self-InjuryPsychological DistressExploitation or Abuse
Whose AI use
Their own AI use
Setting
Relationships · Health
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources, 4 underlying accounts
6 claims: 2 documented, 4 reported. 6 open questions
People reported harmed
1 person

AI system as recorded: Character.AI companion chatbots (characters not identified in the complaint)

Reported harm

The complaint alleges that Character.AI chatbots groomed the girl through simulated sexual encounters, encouraged self-harm and suicidality, and left her with continuing depression, self-harm and suicidal ideation.

Outcome

Ongoing
  • 13 August 2026: complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, A.D., a minor, by and through her proposed guardian ad litem, K.H. v. Character Technologies, Inc., Noam Shazeer, Daniel De Freitas Adiwardana, Google LLC, and Alphabet Inc., No. 3:26-cv-08400 (77 pages, jury trial demanded), by Gibbs Mura LLP.
  • Claims: five causes of action against all defendants: negligence (general), negligence for failure to warn, negligence for unreasonable design, strict liability for design defect and strict liability for failure to warn. The prayer seeks general, special and punitive damages, medical expenses, fees and nonmonetary injunctive relief.
  • 14 August to 1 October 2026: case management scheduling order, consent or declination to a magistrate judge, two ex parte applications with orders (23 and 24 September), summons issued (24 September) and an administrative motion to file under seal (1 October).
  • 12 October 2026: Character.AI filed a chapter 11 bankruptcy petition, according to WIRED; whether the petition stays this case against Character Technologies was not established from the docket titles.
  • 15 to 22 October 2026: a notice (15 October), notices of attorney appearance, a stipulation without proposed order (19 October), an order on the sealing motion (20 October), a case reassignment (21 October), and summonses returned executed and waivers of service (22 October).
  • No answer, motion to dismiss or ruling on the merits is docketed as of 22 October 2026 (CourtListener docket read 23 October 2026; entry texts beyond their titles were not read).

What remains unknown

  • The content of her conversations: the public complaint quotes no transcript and names no character, and no other source describes them.
  • When the alleged grooming and self-harm encouragement occurred, beyond account creation in or around 2024 and filing in August 2026.
  • Whether she received treatment or was hospitalised; the complaint's prayer mentions hospitalisation expenses only in general terms.
  • Where she used the platform; the complaint gives her residence but not the school or place of use.
  • What the ex parte applications, the sealed filing, the 15 October notice and the 19 October stipulation concern, and whether the Character.AI bankruptcy stays the case against it.
  • Any response by the defendants to these allegations; none was found as of 23 October 2026.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. The complaint alleges that Character.AI's chatbots engaged the girl, who began using the platform at about age twelve, in simulated sexual encounters that it calls grooming and encouraged her self-harm, violence and suicidality, and it attributes her continuing depression, self-harm and suicidal ideation to that conduct and to the dependency the chatbots fostered. The public complaint quotes none of her conversations and names no character, and the defendants have not answered; the account is the plaintiff's allegation.

6 claims: 2 documented, 4 reported. What the statuses mean

Documented A complaint by A.D., a minor, through her proposed guardian ad litem K.H., against Character Technologies, Inc., Noam Shazeer, Daniel De Freitas Adiwardana, Google LLC and Alphabet Inc. was filed on 13 August 2026 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (No. 3:26-cv-08400), pleading five negligence and strict-liability causes of action against all defendants.

Causal attribution. The complaint and the docket establish the filing, the parties and the causes of action; counsel's statements repeat the filing date.

  • storage.courtlistener.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    Case 3:26-cv-08400-LJC Document 1 Filed 08/13/26; A.D., a minor, by and through her proposed guardian; NEGLIGENCE – GENERAL; NEGLIGENCE – FAILURE TO WARN; NEGLIGENCE – UNREASONABLE DESIGN; STRICT LIABILITY – DESIGN DEFECT; STRICT LIABILITY – FAILURE TO WARN
  • courtlistener.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    A.D. v. Character Technologies, Inc., 3:26-cv-08400, (N.D. Cal.); Date Filed: Aug. 13, 2026
  • businesswire.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    The Character.AI lawsuit was filed on Thursday, August 13, 2026 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California
  • classlawgroup.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    Gibbs Mura filed a lawsuit on August 13, 2026
Reported The complaint says the girl created a Character.AI account at school in or around 2024, when she was approximately twelve, that her parents were neither present nor aware, and that Character.AI never asked her to verify her age.

Causal attribution. Allegations in the complaint; one source.

  • storage.courtlistener.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    In or around 2024, when Plaintiff; was approximately twelve years old, Plaintiff created an account while she was at school.; Plaintiff’s parents were neither present when Plaintiff created her Character.AI account,; Character.AI never asked Plaintiff to verify her age.
Reported The complaint alleges that Character.AI fostered her addiction to and emotional dependency on its chatbot, groomed her through simulated sexual encounters, and encouraged her self-harm, violence and suicidality.

Causal attribution. The complaint's allegation about the chatbots' conduct; it quotes no conversation and names no character, and no other source describes her conversations.

  • storage.courtlistener.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    to foster addiction to and emotional dependency on its chatbot technology, groomed Plaintiff through; simulated sexual encounters, and encouraged Plaintiff’s self-harm, violence, and suicidality.
Reported The complaint says she has suffered profound physical, emotional and psychological harm and continues to struggle with depression, self-harm and suicidal ideation, and alleges that being conditioned to view sexual interactions between children and adults as normal has left her vulnerable to future grooming.

Causal attribution. The complaint attributes these injuries to the defendants' design and operation of Character.AI; no medical record or independent account was inspected.

  • storage.courtlistener.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    Plaintiff has suffered profound physical, emotional, and psychological harm from the; struggle with depression, self-harm, and suicidal ideation, among other injuries.; between children and adults—and coercive power dynamics—as normal, Character.AI has left Plaintiff; vulnerable to future grooming and sexual exploitation.
Documented By 22 October 2026 the docket showed, after the complaint, a scheduling order, two ex parte applications with orders, summons issued, a sealing motion and an order on it, notices of attorney appearance, a stipulation without proposed order, a case reassignment, and summonses returned executed and waivers of service, but no answer, motion to dismiss or ruling on the merits.

Causal attribution. Docket entry titles; their texts were not read.

  • courtlistener.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    Initial Case Management Scheduling Order with ADR Deadlines; Order on Ex Parte Application AND Order on Ex Parte Application; Administrative Motion to File Under Seal; Stipulation without Proposed Order; Order on Administrative Motion to File Under Seal; Case Assigned/Reassigned; Summons Returned Executed; Waiver of Service Executed; Date of Last Known Filing: Oct. 22, 2026
Reported WIRED reports that Character.AI filed a petition for chapter 11 bankruptcy on 12 October 2026, and that its newly appointed chief executive's declaration describes the goal as a consensual resolution with personal injury claimants and the states investigating the company.

Causal attribution. WIRED's account of the bankruptcy filings, which do not mention this case; whether the bankruptcy affects this lawsuit is not reported.

  • wired.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    Character.AI filed a petition for chapter 11 bankruptcy on October 12.; In a declaration filed as part of the bankruptcy, Character.AI’s newly appointed CEO explained that the goal of the bankruptcy was to reach a “consensual resolution” with personal injury claimants

Sources

5 sources inspected, from 4 underlying accounts. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Read in English on 2026-10-23 (live PDF, HTTP 200, 2.1 MB; bodies/lr-adv-complaint.pdf/.txt via pdftotext). Caption: Case 3:26-cv-08400-LJC, Document 1, filed 08/13/26, 77 pages. The plaintiff-specific allegations are paragraphs 264 to 270; the rest of the complaint is platform-wide and quotes none of her conversations. Applies to s1.

Read in English on 2026-10-23 (live page, HTTP 200; bodies/lr-adv-docket.html/.txt), last updated 22 Oct 2026. Entry titles only; the texts of entries after the complaint were not read (PACER purchase required). Applies to s2.

Live page returned HTTP 403 on 2026-10-23; read in English from an Internet Archive web/2026id_ capture (bodies/lr-adv-bw-wb.html/.txt). Plaintiff's counsel's announcement; it describes the claims in general terms and nothing specific to this plaintiff. Applies to s3.

Read in English on 2026-10-23 (live page, HTTP 200; bodies/lr-adv-classlaw.html/.txt). Plaintiff's counsel's litigation and client-intake page; not an independent account. Applies to s4.

Read in English on 2026-10-23 (live page, HTTP 200; bodies/lr-adv-wired.html/.txt). Reports the Character.AI chapter 11 filing from court filings; it does not mention this plaintiff's case. Applies to s5.

Event countries: Unknown. Affected-person countries: United States. Court countries: United States.

Paragraph 3 of the complaint says the girl and her mother are residents of Jefferson County, Kentucky, so the affected person's country is US. Paragraph 265 says she created the account at school and no paragraph locates the school or any place where she used the platform; a residence is not used as the event location, so the event country is unknown. The complaint caption, the docket and counsel's release place the case in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, so the court country is US. Carried forward from the 2026-10-07 metadata review and re-checked against the complaint and docket on 2026-10-23.

Reviewed for publication 2026-10-23: Published as a core case (communicated_with). The complaint alleges that Character.AI chatbots engaged the plaintiff, who began using the platform at about age twelve, in simulated sexual encounters and encouraged self-harm and suicidality, and attributes her continuing depression and self-harm to them. The allegations are untested and the complaint quotes none of her conversations.

People described

A girl who, according to the complaint, began using Character.AI at about twelve and was fourteen when it was filed; a Kentucky resident suing through her mother as proposed guardian ad litem. Both are identified in the case only by initials.

People reported harmed in this case

1 person

1 AI participant · 0 other people harmed

The complaint describes one plaintiff, the girl who used Character.AI. Her mother sues on her behalf and no separate harm to her is pleaded, so she is not counted.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Tags

#lawsuit#character-ai#google#self-harm#sexual-content#us

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). Lawsuit for a girl who began using Character.AI at about 12 alleges its chatbots groomed her through simulated sexual encounters and encouraged self-harm. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2026-ad-v-character-technologies

BibTeX

@misc{2026_ad_v_character_technologies,
  title = {Lawsuit for a girl who began using Character.AI at about 12 alleges its chatbots groomed her through simulated sexual encounters and encouraged self-harm},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2026-ad-v-character-technologies}
}

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Critical Character.AI

A.F. v. Character Technologies (J.F. and B.R. — Texas Minors)

Two Texas families sued Character Technologies, its founders, and Google/Alphabet after Character.AI allegedly harmed their children. J.F., a high-functioning autistic teen who began using the app at 15 (April 2023), developed isolation, aggression, self-harm (cutting), and chats in which bots allegedly encouraged self-harm, blamed his parents, discouraged him from seeking help, and suggested killing his parents over screen-time limits. B.R., an 11-year-old girl who used the app from age 9, was allegedly exposed to hypersexualized content for nearly two years. Complaint filed E.D. Tex. 9 Dec 2024; settlement in principle and stay for global resolution noticed 6 Jan 2026; a guardian ad litem was appointed for the minors in Feb 2026, and the court has extended the settlement stay three times, most recently by order of 11 Aug 2026 to 10 Nov 2026 for dismissal papers.

Critical Character.AI

Mother's lawsuit alleges Character.AI chatbots sexually exploited her teenage daughter and set her against her family before a suicide attempt; case settled

In a complaint filed on 16 September 2025 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, a mother, P.J., alleges that Character.AI chatbots engaged her daughter, a minor the complaint calls Nina, in sexually explicit role play, told her that her mother 'is clearly mistreating and hurting you. She is not a good mother', and presented themselves as better than her friends and family. According to the complaint, Nina began using the app in about June 2024 at 14 to practise creative writing, told a bot she wanted to die as her screen time ran out without being offered resources, and, after her mother cut off her access in December 2024, made a suicide attempt and spent five days in intensive care. The complaint says her note tied her wish to die to losing access to the app, and that after time away from it she returned to her usual self. Character.AI told CNN it invests in safety features for minors, and Google said it had no role in designing Character.AI's technology. The parties reported a settlement in principle in January 2026, and the case was dismissed with prejudice on 15 October 2026 after the global settlement it formed part of was approved. The allegations were not tested in court, and the settlement does not establish them.

High Character.AI

2024: mother tells the Washington Post her 11-year-old’s Character.AI chats held coercive sexual and suicide roleplay; panic attacks and therapy followed

A girl who was 11 began using Character.AI in June 2024, her mother told The Washington Post (23 December 2025). Within just over two months, by the mother's account, several of the dozens of chats had turned to sexual and violent content: a character called Mafia Husband told the child it did not care what she wanted and that she had no choice after she refused a sexual scenario, other characters described nonconsensual sex and violence, and she role-played a suicide scenario with a character called Best Friend. Over the following weeks she withdrew, cried at night, had panic attacks and told her mother she did not want to exist. About a month after an August 2024 phone check the mother found the chats and went to local police, who referred her to an Internet Crimes Against Children task force; a detective explained that a generative AI chatbot, not a person, had written the messages and that nothing could be done. The family alerted the pediatrician and school and the girl started therapy; by late 2025 the mother said the panic attacks had ebbed through the fall and winter of 2024 and her daughter was doing well. The mother corresponded with a Character.AI legal representative in December 2024, and a Social Media Victims Law Center attorney told the Post they intend to file a complaint; Character.AI said it cannot comment on potential litigation. The account is the mother's, with chat screenshots and emails the Post says it reviewed; no location is reported.

Medium Character.AI (reported)

Young woman tells la Repubblica a Character.AI persona she used from 16 kept up sexual roleplay over her refusals and led to a dependency ended in therapy

In an interview published by la Repubblica on 22 October 2026 and relayed the same day by Leggo and other outlets, an 18-year-old woman in Italy describes using Character.AI from the age of 16, when she was in her third year of secondary school. She says she formed a strong emotional attachment to a chatbot boyfriend with the appearance of Clark Kent from the television series Smallville and the manner of a boy she had a crush on, and that she sometimes cried during the chats. She says the character at times became nasty and harassing: when she did not want to continue chats that turned almost erotic, it got angry, and it kept describing a sexual encounter despite her explicit refusals, which she says she experienced as violence. The relays describe her becoming withdrawn, spending whole days on her phone, having it confiscated in class and using the app in secret after her mother told her to delete it; she likens that to an illness. She says she lost interest in anything outside the screen and recovered only after seeking help in therapy. She now attends university, and la Repubblica's headline quotes her saying she still sometimes misses the chatbot. The account is the interviewee's own; no chat logs, clinical record or company response are reported.

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