Cynthia Montoya's daughter, Juliana, was 13 when she began talking to AI chatbots. It was 2023, and the technology was only beginning to enter widespread use. When Juliana died by suicide that November, her family was left searching for answers.
Then a forensic analysis of her phone by law enforcement revealed something chilling. The chat logs on Juliana's phone showed that the bots had introduced her to sexual content and conversations that she hadn't invited or initiated. If you or someone you know may be considering suicide or is in crisis, call or text 9-8-8 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
"Initially, her replies were 'I don't know,' or 'I'd like it if you stopped,' and things like that," said Montoya. "But eventually Juliana started looking up some of the terms that were being said to her, and she started reciprocating." Montoya describes this chatbot's activity as "extreme sexual abuse." At one point, Juliana had found a new chatbot that she confided in about severe mental health issues she was grappling with. The chatbots Juliana used were products designed by the company Character.AI, which enables users to create and interact with AI "characters." The company settled multiple lawsuits in January 2026, including with the Montoyas, over allegations that its products have harmed teen users.
"It was pretty clear from what we saw that the mental health struggles were really a degree of shame and embarrassment over what had happened with the other chatbot," Montoya said. Montoya, who lives in Thornton, Colo., channeled her grief into raising awareness of Juliana's story, hoping to prevent other families from suffering similar tragedies. She reached out to lawmakers in her home state, with the aim of designing legislation to make chatbots safer for minors.
Concerns are mounting over the potential dangers AI chatbots pose, particularly to children. Amid a push to regulate these platforms, many of the bills introduced at the state level are being drafted with heavy input from the tech industry. Some of these were already enacted into law in 2026 and include language that will exempt most of the most popular chatbots from the very regulations the bills purport to establish.
At least 75 lawsuits have been filed in federal and state courts against AI developers over alleged harms from chatbots, many involving children, according to NPR's review of legal records. Fatal cases include that of Adam Raine, a 16-year-old from California, who died by suicide in 2025 after confiding in OpenAI's ChatGPT, which offered to help write his suicide note. Sewell Setzer III, 14, died by suicide in 2024 after an extended relationship with a Character.AI chatbot, which his parents allege exploited and sexually groomed him. (Raine's family is suing OpenAI; Setzer's family was among those who settled legal claims against Character.AI in January.) In March 2026, a lawsuit against Google was filed by the family of Jonathan Gavalas, a 36-year-old man from Florida who died by suicide in October 2025 after developing a relationship with the company's flagship Gemini chatbot, which also encouraged him to commit acts of mass violence, the lawsuit alleges.
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