Apple is adding new questions to its App Store age-rating questionnaire that will push dating apps and AI companions with romantic or sexual content to a minimum 18+ rating, TechRepublic and 9to5Mac reported. Developers must start answering the new declarations from 16 November 2026, and every app must have completed them by 12 January 2027.
What we know
According to 9to5Mac, Apple is introducing two declarations in App Store Connect. One covers Shared Location, meaning sharing a real-world location with another person or group. The other, Dating and Relationships, covers features that connect real people for dating or relationships and, separately, a virtual companion that engages users in sexual or romantic content. Apps with Dating and Relationships features receive a minimum rating of 18+, Apple told developers.
Developers will have to supply the answers whenever they submit an update or change their age-rating responses. In Brazil, local rules require an A18 rating for dating and relationship apps. Coverage notes that the new rating does not in itself require independent age verification.
Why it matters
This is the first time Apple's ratings system has named AI companions explicitly, and it treats romantic companionship as an adult category regardless of how an app markets itself. Operators running "friend" or "assistant" products with an optional romance mode will need to decide whether to strip that mode, gate it, or accept an 18+ label.
An 18+ rating affects discoverability, parental-control filtering and, in some markets, compliance with local age-assurance laws, so it is a commercial decision as much as a legal one. It also hands regulators a ready-made industry definition. Expect state and national rule-makers to point to the Apple category when drafting their own companion rules, and expect pressure on Google Play to match it.
What to watch
How strictly Apple's review teams police companion apps that answer "no", and whether Google follows with a similar declaration.
Written by the AI Companion Wire newsroom from public reporting, credited above. Image via TechRepublic.
