Apple restricts dating apps and AI companions to users 18 and up

Sarah Perez

7:38 AM PST · November 3, 2026

Apple is adjusting its App Store policies to make it more difficult for minors to use online dating apps or AI companions that engage in “sexual or romantic content,” the tech giant shared in an announcement to developers on Monday.

The new rules follow other changes the company has made to better protect minors, which include the rollout of its age assurance technology globally and more parental controls and child safety features .

While most major dating services typically restrict their platform to adults, Apple’s new policy will require all apps offering dating or romantic relationship features to carry an 18+ rating. Starting November 16, developers will be required to include new content descriptors to ensure their app’s age ratings reflect its features, the company said.

It’s perhaps more interesting how this rule could impact AI companion apps, or those where such functionality is one of many features. Often targeted at younger people, Character.AI, Replika, and other AI apps let people create AI companions, including friends, lovers, boyfriends and girlfriends, and other fantasy characters.

xAI last year also launched 3D animated AI companions that allowed users to unlock NSFW capabilities . As of last summer, top AI companion apps across the Apple App Store and Google Play had been downloaded 220 million times globally .

In addition to “dating and relationships,” apps will also need to indicate if they are sharing the real-world locations of a user with another person or group as part of their functionality. Any app doing so raises obvious privacy concerns, especially if the user wasn’t aware that their location was being shared.

The company noted that in Brazil, apps that provide location-sharing features for families can request an official rating from the government’s Ministry of Justice and Public Security (MJSP/Ministério da Justiça e Segurança Pública), instead of being required to list them with the A16 rating, as the local law requires.

Topics

AI , ai companion , app store , Apps , online dating

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission . This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.

Sarah Perez

Consumer News Editor

Sarah has worked as a reporter for TechCrunch since August 2011. She joined the company after having previously spent over three years at ReadWriteWeb. Prior to her work as a reporter, Sarah worked in I.T. across a number of industries, including banking, retail and software.

You can contact or verify outreach from Sarah by emailing [email protected] or via encrypted message at sarahperez.01 on Signal.

View Bio

November 4

Boston

Buy One Pass, Get a Second Free

Cover more ground at TechCrunch’s ultimate founder bootcamp of the year by bringing your co-founder or partner for free

Book before the BOGO deal expires

Register Now

Most Popular

Anthropic warns that it’s very close to RSI capability, aka self-building AI

Julie Bort

Anthropic expected to receive high ‘junk’ rating from credit agencies following IPO, FT report says

Lucas Ropek

Google’s first data center satellite is online and writing poetry

Tim Fernholz

Binance pauses withdrawals as hackers suspected of stealing billions in crypto

Zack Whittaker

As search traffic dries up, Reddit announces it’s shifting to a logged-in experience

Sarah Perez

AI execs may be too out of touch to build for the general public

Amanda Silberling

VCs will make billions on Anthropic’s IPO, but Amazon is set to make much (much) more

Marina Temkin

Loading the next article

Error loading the next article