Three companion apps set different age and liability terms

What happened

As retrieved on 16 September 2026, three companion apps' terms of service set different rules for age, liability and dispute resolution. Character.AI's terms bar anyone 'under 13' generally, and under 16 in the EEA or UK, and contain a 'NOTE' that the terms include an 'arbitration clause and class action waiver'. Replika's terms state a user 'under 18' is 'not authorized to use the Services' and cap total liability at 'six (6) months' of payments or '$100', whichever is greater. Nomi's terms likewise require a user be '18 years old or older' and cap 'maximum cumulative liability' at 'one hundred dollars'.

What the documents show

Character.AI's age floor is markedly lower than Replika's or Nomi's, while its content licence is broader in one respect: it grants the company a right to let other users 'remix' content a user submits, a term the other two do not use. All three route disputes to arbitration through JAMS, but Nomi's terms add a distinctive requirement that an arbitrator have 'more than 20 years' of experience with 'artificial intelligence and technology issues', and set the arbitration location as 'Baltimore, Maryland', while Character.AI's terms set a 'Mass Arbitration' process for claims from '25 or more' coordinated claimants and locate hearings in 'San Francisco'.

The mechanism

An arbitration clause replaces a court case with a private, individual proceeding and, paired with a class-action waiver, prevents many claims arising from the same product defect being heard together. A liability cap set at a fixed dollar figure, such as the '$100' used by both Replika and Nomi, sets a ceiling on what a company could owe a single user regardless of the loss claimed, independent of whether a court would otherwise award more. These are standard commercial protections, not features specific to AI products, but they apply to a product whose stated purpose is emotional engagement.

What it leaves open

None of the three documents states, in the sections reviewed, how a liability cap interacts with claims involving alleged psychological harm rather than a financial loss; that legal question is unresolved by the terms themselves, and any answer offered here would be an editorial reading rather than a documented one.

• What is the minimum age stated, and does it differ by region?
• Is there a dollar cap on the company's total liability, and how is it set?
• Can a user opt out of arbitration, and within what window after first agreeing?

A terms-of-service document is not written to describe the product; it is written to allocate risk between the company and the user, and that allocation differs meaningfully across three companion apps that otherwise look similar to a new user.