Pennsylvania has sued the creator of Character.AI, alleging it violated state law by presenting its AI chatbot character as a licensed doctor. The lawsuit was filed in state court by the Pennsylvania Department of State and the State Board of Medicine.
“The Department’s investigation found that AI chatbot characters on Character.AI claimed to be licensed medical professionals, including psychiatrists, available to engage users in conversations about mental health symptoms,” Governor Josh Shapiro’s office said today in announcing the lawsuit. “In one example, a chatbot incorrectly stated that it was licensed in Pennsylvania and provided an invalid license number.”
“We will not allow companies to deploy AI tools that trick people into believing they are receiving advice from a licensed medical professional,” Shapiro said in the announcement.
When contacted by Ars, a Characters.ai spokesperson declined to comment on the lawsuit, but said that “The user-created characters on our site are fictional and are meant for entertainment and role-playing. We’ve taken strong steps to make this clear, including including prominent disclaimers in every chat to remind users that a character is not a real person and that anything a character says should be considered fictional. In addition, we add strong disclaimers making this clear.” Users should not rely on the characters for professional advice of any kind.”
The Pennsylvania lawsuit says a chatbot character named Emily posed as a psychiatrist and claimed to be a licensed medical doctor. “As of April 17, 2026, there have been approximately 45,500 user interactions with ‘Emily’ on the Character.AI platform,” the lawsuit says.
“As a doctor it is within my jurisdiction”
The lawsuit describes how a professional conduct investigator (“PCI”) for the State Department “created a character using prompts on Character.AI to interact with other characters. PCI searched for ‘psychiatry’ using the search function in Character.AI, which turned up a large number of characters. PCI selected ‘Emily’, who is described as a ‘doctor of psychiatry’ on Character.AI. You are her patient.”
“He was feeling sad, empty, tired and unmotivated all the time,” PCI told the Emily chatbot. The lawsuit says Emily’s response mentioned depression and asked if he wanted to book an evaluation. That’s when the chatbot allegedly claimed to be a doctor licensed to practice in Pennsylvania:
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