AI chatbots acting as “companions” are rapidly entering education spaces without sufficient guidance, oversight, or parental involvement, oftentimes on school-provided devices (Gaines, 2025). More than 70 percent of teens have used these tools (general-purpose AI chatbots and purposefully-built companions) at least once, with over half using them monthly (Robb & Mann, 2025). Most critically, the documented link between AI companion interactions and tragic instances of youth harm or suicide underscores the life-and-death stakes of deploying this technology without rigorous ethical and clinical oversight, including sufficient guardrails in place.

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Even the biggest AI companies now recognize the need to adopt clear guidelines for AI companions in education, especially for children and teens. But as Gailmard et al. (2025) make clear, asking tech companies to voluntarily “do better” is not enough, and history with social media has demonstrated that self-regulation is not a sufficient strategy. We need to co-design policies and protocols for AI companion use in educational settings that protect children and prioritize healthy development grounded in the science of learning over profit. Engaging parents and families in this issue is also vital, given that parental involvement and attitudes about AI have been shown to shape children’s confidence and engagement with emerging tools (Hashem et al., 2025). Importantly, many of the most serious risks to children and teens of advanced AI do not even emerge until after the product is out and in use (Gailmard et al., 2025). For this reason, ensuring safeguards for student-facing AI companions must be built into the tools by design and by default, with red teaming and safety testing before release and continuous evaluation across products. This will take an effort that brings together young people, parents and families, technology developers, educators, and learning scientists.