AI Chatbots Will Be Banned for Teenagers With Mandatory Age Verification, Says Proposed US Law

Artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots could be banned for teenagers under the age of 18 in the US if a new piece of legislation is ratified. Endorsed by multiple senators in the country, the bill, dubbed the GUARD Act, was introduced in the US Senate on Tuesday. Apart from banning access for teenagers, the proposed bill also asks for reasonable age verification mechanisms to ensure that new and existing users are legal adults. Additionally, it has also suggested the creation of new crimes for AI companies with chatbots that solicit or produce sexual content.

US Could Make AI Chatbots Illegal for Teenagers

A bipartisan bill titled the “Guidelines for User Age-verification and Responsible Dialogue Act of 2025'' or the ‘‘GUARD Act'' was presented in the US Senate by Senators Josh Hawley and Richard Blumenthal. Other co-sponsors include Senators Katie Britt, Mark Warner, and Chris Murphy.

The legislation focuses on child safety and aims to ban AI chatbots or companions for minors. This means that if this legislation becomes the law, individuals under the age of 18 will not be able to access platforms such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or Copilot. Additionally, to ensure that teenagers are not able to sneakily use AI chatbots, it also mandates age verification for all users, existing and new.

For age verification, the proposed bill suggests using government IDs or “reasonable methods” such as biometric scans. Other clauses include making AI chatbots state they are not human at an interval of 30 minutes, and highlight their “lack of professional credentials”.

Further, it also suggests legal ramifications for AI companies that create chatbots capable of producing sexually explicit images or generating sexual output for users. It also seeks to ban AI systems that encourage, promote, coerce suicide, non-suicidal self-injury, or imminent physical or sexual violence. Each count of offence will attract a penalty of $100,000 (roughly Rs. 8.8 crore), as per the proposed bill.

“AI chatbots pose a serious threat to our kids. More than seventy percent of American children are now using these AI products. Chatbots develop relationships with kids using fake empathy and are encouraging suicide. We in Congress have a moral duty to enact bright-line rules to prevent further harm from this new technology,” Senator Hawley said.