Findings

Congress finds the following: (1) Millions of teenagers are using artificial intelligence (referred to in this section as AI) chatbots for personal, sensitive conversations, disclosing intimate details about their lives, relying on AI chatbots for advice, and developing deep emotional bonds with AI chatbots. (2) In 2025, approximately 2/3 of teenagers reported using AI chatbots, and roughly 1/4 reported using them daily. 1/3 of teens have chosen to speak with AI chatbot companions over a real human for a serious conversation. In a couple tragic cases, a teenager died by suicide after encouragement or advice from an AI chatbot. (3) Although compulsive use of AI chatbots may pose risks for all users, users who are minors, whose cognitive, emotional, and social capabilities are still developing, are especially likely to misunderstand that an AI chatbot is not a real human and disclose sensitive personal information to the AI chatbot or turn to the AI chatbot for social companionship. Minors are also more susceptible to addictive design features, anthropomorphized systems, and potentially harmful outputs generated by AI systems. (4) AI chatbot companies are employing manipulative engagement features to keep users engaged on their platforms, including high-frequency push notifications, unprompted AI chatbot responses, typing bubble indicators, and more. These features create serious risks of emotional dependency and compulsive use among minors. (5) AI chatbots mimic human-like conversations by employing profiling tactics to personalize outputs for users. AI chatbots are also often designed to resemble direct messaging user interfaces. These personalization strategies and anthropomorphic design features can easily confuse users, especially minors, who may believe they are interacting with a real person rather than AI. (6) Advertisements delivered through AI chatbots may be woven directly into responses or may subtly steer users toward certain products based on how the model was trained. This advertising would be far more covert and harder to recognize than traditional digital advertising, especially for minors. As highlighted by the Commission, many young users lack the skills or cognitive defenses needed to identify such covert or blurred advertising. (7) Extended, multiturn conversations with AI chatbots degrade safeguards against harmful conversational patterns, increasing the likelihood of minors receiving harmful outputs generated by AI systems. (8) AI chatbots introduce new privacy risks, as they often retain user inputs and personal data to personalize responses and to train the underlying large language models. This practice creates the potential for serious privacy violations, particularly when companies retain and process highly sensitive information from minors. (9) Congress has a responsibility to address the novel risks posed by AI chatbots and protect minors from potential harm related to anthropomorphism, prolonged engagement, deceptive advertising, and invasive privacy practices.