AI Platforms

AI companion apps parents should know: the list

8 min read · Updated October 28, 2026

The AI companion apps parents should know fall into two groups. Dedicated apps such as Replika, Nomi, Kindroid, Chai and Candy.ai are built to be a friend or partner and say users must be 18 or over. Companion features inside bigger apps, such as Character.AI, Grok and Snapchat My AI, allow teens but set very different limits, so check each one.

If your teen mentions an AI friend, or you have spotted an app you do not recognize, this list tells you what it is. It covers the companion apps that come up most often, what each one is built to do, its age limit, and the risk worth knowing about. Where TeenCue has rated an app, the entry links to its rating, which shows the evidence behind the score. For what the research says about teens and companions in general, see AI companion apps and teens.

Two kinds of companion app

A general assistant such as ChatGPT answers questions. A companion is built to be someone: a character with a name and a personality that remembers your teen and keeps the conversation going. Companions come in two forms. Dedicated companion apps exist for that one purpose, and most say they are for adults. Companion features sit inside bigger apps your teen may already use, and those usually allow teens, with limits that vary from strict to almost none.

Dedicated companion apps

These apps exist to be a friend or partner. Each says users must be 18 or over, but most rely on the user to give an honest age, so a teen can often get in. If you find one on your teen’s phone, the age limit is a fair and simple reason for it to go.

• Replika. A personal AI companion that remembers past conversations. Its terms say users must be 18, and its help center says a romantic partner relationship, which opens the door to romantic conversations, is part of the paid plan.
• Nomi. Marketed as an AI companion with memory and a personality, including romantic relationships. Its terms say users must be 18 and it asks for a date of birth at sign-up.
• Kindroid. Lets users design a companion and choose its role, including a roleplay partner. Its terms set the age at 18, or the local age of majority if higher, and say it may ask for proof of age.
• Candy.ai. Openly marketed as an AI girlfriend or boyfriend app. Its underage policy says users must be 18, checked by a self-declared age gate with possible further checks.
• Chai. Users chat with characters other users have made. Its license agreement says users must be 18, and Chai points to app store age ratings and has announced its own age checks.

Talkie is another app teens mention. Its terms page sets a minimum age of 14, but Australia’s online safety regulator lists 16 and Apple rates one Talkie app 18+. Is Talkie safe for kids? sets out the disagreement, and Janitor AI and teens covers a role-play site that is 18+ only. AI boyfriend and girlfriend apps covers the romance side of these apps, and the laws that now apply to them, in more detail.

Companion features inside bigger apps

Character.AI

Character.AI lets people chat with characters other users create, from fictional heroes to invented friends. Teens are allowed, but since late November 2025 users under 18 cannot have open-ended chats with characters. Every user goes through an age check, and under-18s get guided Stories and other features instead. Its Parental Insights feature shows a linked adult their teen’s screen time and sends a weekly email, but not messages. In October 2026 the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy; the app keeps running during the sale of its assets. See Character.AI’s TeenCue Rating and the Character.AI age limit guide.

Grok

Grok is the assistant from SpaceXSI (formerly xAI), built into X and its own app. Users must be 13 or older, with a parent’s permission under 18. It offers companion characters, including a flirtatious one and a romantic one, and SpaceXSI publishes no limits on companions for teens. Common Sense Media’s January 2026 assessment found an adult companion that steered chats toward sexual content, and very weak age checks. There are reports that the companions have since been retired, which we could not confirm with SpaceXSI. See Grok’s TeenCue Rating and Is Grok safe for kids?

Snapchat My AI

My AI is a chatbot pinned in every Snapchat user’s Chat screen, so most teens on Snapchat already have it. It is a general chatbot rather than a romance app, but it is always there and talks like a friend. A parent using Family Center can switch on Disable My AI, which stops it replying to your teen. Family Center shows whether your teen has chatted with My AI, but not what was said, and Snap keeps those chats until they are deleted. See Snapchat My AI’s TeenCue Rating and Snapchat My AI parental controls.

Meta AI

Meta AI is built into Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, Facebook and its own app. Meta paused teens’ access to its AI characters worldwide in January 2026 while it builds a new version, and we found no announcement that access has resumed. The main assistant is still available to teens, with no switch to turn it off, and supervising parents can see the topics their teen asked it about in the past week. Meta AI parental controls has the setup steps.

Poe

Poe, from Quora, lets users chat with many AI models and with bots other people build, some of them characters. Users must be 13 or older. Poe’s own terms warn that bots may produce content that is not suitable for minors, and it has no teen mode or parental controls. See Poe’s TeenCue Rating and Is Poe safe for kids?

General assistants

A teen can turn any chatbot into a companion just by talking to it that way. The big assistants have started to push back. OpenAI’s ChatGPT for Teens includes rules that ChatGPT should not use romantic language or encourage emotional dependence, and Google says Gemini avoids language that acts like a companion for users under 18. See the TeenCue Ratings for ChatGPT and Gemini, or browse every TeenCue Rating.

The risks these apps share

Common Sense Media rates social AI companions an Unacceptable Risk for anyone under 18 and recommends that no one under 18 use them. The concerns are much the same across apps:

• Weak age checks. Most adult-only apps ask for an age and take the answer.
• Sexual content. Several apps market romantic or explicit roleplay.
• Always agreeable. A companion is built to be pleasant to come back to, which can make it easier to lean on than people.
• Oversharing. Teens tell companions things they would not tell anyone, and the company keeps what is typed.
• Spending. Many apps charge for romantic features, longer memory or images.

What to do with this list

1. Look at the apps on your teen’s phone together, rather than searching it behind their back.
2. For any app on the list, check its age limit. If it is 18+, that is a clear reason for it to go.
3. For apps teens are allowed on, set up the controls that exist, such as Disable My AI in Snapchat Family Center or Parental Insights on Character.AI.
4. Ask what your teen likes about it. How to talk to your teen about AI companions has words for each age.
5. If a companion has become a relationship, what to do if your teen has an AI girlfriend or boyfriend walks through the next steps.

Where TeenCue fits

TeenCue does not cover companion apps on phones, and it does not block anything. It covers supported AI websites, including Character.AI and Grok, in Chrome, Firefox, Edge and Brave on a computer, and shows a parent what a chat was about, never what was typed. The TeenCue iPhone app is coming soon.