The article’s core point centers on the regulatory threat and deadline, with sponsor notes and related tech items surrounding the story.

Major platform players have not publicly outlined their compliance plans, signaling a broader push for global AI safety regulation.

Reuters’ assessment drew on platform responses, terms of service, and policy statements, highlighting gaps in age-verification visibility across many services.

The review also examined whether services have explicit age-verification prompts, moderation policies, and publicly stated compliance statements.

Australia’s online safety regulator is threatening to require search engines and app stores to block AI services that don’t verify user ages or restrict access to inappropriate content, in a broad AI-age crackdown.

High-profile providers like OpenAI and Character.AI are facing lawsuits over interactions with young users, and OpenAI reportedly deactivated a teen mass shooting suspect’s ChatGPT account in Canada without notifying authorities.

Starting March, Australian users will be restricted from under-18 access to pornography, extreme violence, self-harm, and eating-disorder content across ChatGPT and companion chatbots, with penalties up to A$49.5 million for non-compliance.

Industry voices say the ultimate responsibility lies with services operating in Australia to understand and meet legal obligations, while Apple and Google offered limited or no detailed enforcement plans.

Experts stress that regulators notify services of rules, but legal responsibility ultimately rests with providers to define safe boundaries for AI interactions with children.

Some providers, including Candy AI, Pi, Kindroid, and Nomi, indicated plans to comply, while HammerAI chose to block its Australian service to meet the rules.

Experts such as Jennifer Duxbury and Lisa Given note the novelty and challenges of enforcing safety controls across diverse AI platforms.

Ahead of the deadline, Reuters found only a minority of the 50 most popular text-based AI products had announced age-assurance measures, with many delaying or blocking access for Australians.