Meta adds parental controls for teens' AI chats on Instagram

Meta announced on Friday it will give parents new controls to limit teenagers interactions with artificial intelligence characters on its platforms, allowing guardians to disable one-on-one chats with AI personalities, block specific characters, and receive summaries of the topics their teens discuss. The features are scheduled to roll out early next year on Instagram for English-speaking accounts in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, the company said.

Under the planned controls, parents can turn off access to AI character chats entirely or selectively block individual characters while leaving Meta's general-purpose AI assistant available to teens with default age-appropriate settings. Meta said parents will also be able to see broad topic summaries of teens' conversations with both AI characters and the assistant, rather than full conversation transcripts, and set time limits for AI interactions.

Instagram head Adam Mosseri and Meta's chief AI officer Alexandr Wang described the measures as part of an effort to help families navigate new technology. "We recognize parents already have a lot on their plates when it comes to navigating the internet safely...