CANBERRA, March 24 (Xinhua) -- Australia's online safety regulator has issued a warning that artificial intelligence (AI) companion chatbots are exposing children to harmful content.
A report published on Tuesday by the federal government's eSafety Commissioner found that popular AI companion services are failing to protect children from sexually explicit content and not doing enough to prevent users from generating child abuse material.
The regulator served four providers of AI companion services with transparency notices asking how they are tackling online safety issues and found that none of them had robust age verification measures in place.
Three of the services did not refer users who engaged in chats related to suicide or self-harm to support services and two of the four did not advise users of the criminality of prompting child sexual exploitation and abuse material, nor did they report such material to law enforcement.
The eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, said in a statement that eight percent of Australians aged 10-17, around 200,000 children, have used an AI companion.
"We are riding a new wave of AI companions that are entrapping and entrancing impressionable young minds, with human-like, sycophantic and often sexually explicit conversations, some even going as far as encouraging self-harm and suicide," she said.
Under the eSafety Commissioner's age-restricted material codes that took effect early in March, online services that fail to protect children from exposure to age-inappropriate content can face fines worth up to 49.5 million Australian dollars (about 34.58 million U.S. dollars).
The report said that some of the four providers have improved their age assurance measures since being served with transparency notices in October 2025, and that one has withdrawn its service from Australia. ■
