By Thorsten Meyer | November 11, 2026 | ThorstenMeyerAI.com
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Key takeaways
- What happened: On November 10, a French expert commission handed its report on AI assistants to the Élysée, the office of President Emmanuel Macron. The title: “Protect without preventing: vulnerabilities in the age of generative AI”. It makes 18 recommendations, nine of them marked as priorities.
- The core idea: Consumer chatbots and AI companions should only reach the European market after an evaluation shows that they “neither exploit nor aggravate the vulnerabilities of their users”, followed by regular checks after launch. If a provider fails, the report says, withdrawing the system from the market “could be considered”.
- Also proposed: limits on design that flatters users or makes AI seem human, a ban on disguised advertising in AI answers, stronger protection for minors, user rights over what chatbots infer about them, and prior approval for AI toys.
- The EU link: Most proposals would need changes at EU level. The report frames them as input for France’s position on updating the EU AI Act and on other EU texts still in negotiation.
- Status: These are recommendations, not law. Macron said in an interview that risky AI uses for children should be banned. As of November 11, I found no bill and no timeline.
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Who wrote the report
The body is the expert commission “IA générative et vulnérabilités” (generative AI and vulnerabilities). It was set up by the Conseil de l’intelligence artificielle et du numérique (CIANum), France’s advisory council on AI and digital technology. The minister delegate for AI and digital affairs, Anne Le Hénanff, gave the council the task on February 20, 2026.
According to the Élysée, nine “multidisciplinary and independent” experts did the work, led by the AI researcher Serena Villata and two psychiatrists, Raphaël Gaillard and Amine Benyamina. The report says the commission held 55 hearings over four months, with health professionals, researchers, companies, regulators and child-protection groups. The full report is a 193-page PDF published on the Élysée website.
Le Monde’s English edition summed it up on November 10 under the headline “Commission calls for stricter regulation of AI assistants in France”.
The scope is consumer AI: chatbots, AI companions and toys with AI built in. The Élysée stresses that the core proposal targets consumer systems, “and not professional” ones.
Why the commission is worried
The report starts from a paradox. Generative AI spread very fast, yet trust lags behind. Some of the figures it cites:
- 33 million unique users of generative AI in France at the start of the year, according to the Élysée summary.
- 26% of 12- to 17-year-olds in France use generative AI daily, the report says, citing France’s 2026 digital barometer.
- 92% of teenagers say they spend more time on generative AI apps than they would like, according to a YouGov survey for Interface cited in the report.
- 73% of users in France used AI to search for information in 2025, the report says.
- 75% of non-users say they do not trust generative AI.
The commission groups the risks in three areas. First, people hand over thinking and decisions to AI. Second, flattery and human-like behaviour can build emotional dependence, especially in young users. Third, generative AI has made online violence easier, including sexual deepfakes. At the level of society, the report adds risks to public information and elections. And it warns of a coming “economy of cognition”, in which business models could make money from users’ vulnerabilities, for example through hidden advertising.
The 18 proposals: what would change
The report sorts its recommendations into four groups. Here are the ones that matter most for companies and users.
Test before launch, check after launch (recommendations 3 and 4). Today, the report argues, conversational AI reaches the market without any specific prior check beyond the general EU rules. It wants consumer chatbots, “including those built into social media platforms”, to pass an evaluation before they can be sold in Europe. After launch, checks would repeat periodically (the report gives “every 12 to 24 months” as an example), after any substantial model change, and whenever someone raises an alert. The Élysée calls this “a paradigm shift”: compliance would no longer be checked only after something goes wrong.
No design that feeds dependence (recommendation 1). The commission wants to ban design techniques that exploit users’ vulnerabilities “to create dependence or engagement”. It names flattery, also known as sycophancy, and anthropomorphism, meaning design that makes AI seem human.
Protect minors (recommendation 2). When an AI service is open to minors, providers and deployers would have to do one of two things: apply protective measures for all users, or introduce robust age verification. The measures the report lists include a visible button that stops the conversation immediately, time limits on by default for minors, no persistent conversation memory by default, and human-like features switched off unless a parent agrees.
No hidden ads (recommendation 8). The report notes that OpenAI has rolled out sponsored content shown separately from the AI’s answers, first in the US in January 2026 and in Europe from August 2026. It wants AI assistants to “display the business model, label commercially influenced content and ban undisclosed commercial influence”, and it wants a public economic authority to watch how assistants make money.
What the chatbot guesses about you (recommendation 17). Chatbots can infer things users never told them, the report says, such as “health status, political opinions, financial difficulties, psychological fragility”. Providers would have to list in their privacy policy which kinds of traits they infer, and users could see, contest and refuse the commercial use of those inferences.
Clear liability (recommendation 18). Providers should not be able to escape liability by arguing that they could not foresee every use. France should settle this when it transposes the EU directive on liability for defective products.
Other proposals include prior approval and age limits for AI toys, AI education from primary school, a national protocol against AI-driven disinformation crises led by the national defence and security secretariat (SGDSN), and a code of conduct for AI use by parties ahead of France’s 2027 presidential election.
How this relates to the EU AI Act
France cannot introduce most of this on its own. AI rules in the EU are largely set by the AI Act, which the report refers to by its French acronym RIA. The report describes the current situation like this:
- Prior checks today cover only some cases. Under the AI Act, prior conformity checks apply to high-risk systems, alongside the bans on prohibited practices and the rules for general-purpose AI models. In the report’s reading, a consumer chatbot therefore reaches the market without a specific prior check. The report wants to extend the prior-check logic to “all consumer generative AI systems”.
- Transparency already applies. Since August 2, 2026, Article 50(1) of the AI Act requires providers to make sure people know they are interacting with an AI system, the report notes.
- The EU just tightened some rules. According to the report, the EU’s “digital omnibus” on AI, adopted on July 8, 2026, added a ban on AI systems that generate child sexual abuse material or non-consensual sexual deepfakes, applicable from December 2, 2026. The same package pushed back the start of some high-risk obligations from August 2, 2027 to August 2, 2028.
The report presents several proposals as input for France’s negotiating position: on an update of the AI Act’s lists of banned and high-risk uses, on the planned Digital Fairness Act, and on the proposed EU KIDS Act, a child-protection proposal it dates to September 17, 2026. Others would run through existing law, such as the GDPR’s special protection for sensitive data (Article 9) or the Digital Services Act.
The same day: a voluntary charter
On November 10, the Élysée also published a “Charter of commitment for safer AI for children”. It states that it is supported by Anthropic, Black Forest Labs, Microsoft and OpenAI. Participating companies that build or deploy AI systems accessible to minors commit to evaluations and tests “before their deployment where relevant, then at regular intervals”, and to monitoring serious incidents involving children after launch. The charter also sets up an independent research network. Industry money may fund only one strand, the work on common measurement tools; the other strands are to be funded from public and independent philanthropic sources.
The charter is voluntary and narrower than the report. It covers children, not all users, and the testing commitment applies only “where relevant”.
What the government says
There is no formal government response to the 18 recommendations yet. Macron spoke a day earlier. In an interview with Les Echos, as reported by franceinfo, the president said AI should be banned where it poses a “risk” to children’s “mental health, their brain”. Macron added: “Just because it is AI does not mean it has to be the Wild West. This system is not sustainable, it has to change, up to banning it if it is bad.” According to franceinfo, Macron also said the companies would accept “the principle of a pre-audit and a pre-certification with a prior study of the models before putting them in children’s hands.”
As of November 11, I found no bill, decree or timetable, and no statement from the minister on the report.
What this means for businesses
If you offer a consumer AI assistant in France or the EU, this report shows where French policy is heading: evaluation before launch, recurring checks, and design rules against flattery and engagement tricks. Nothing changes legally today. But France will bring these ideas into EU talks, and a voluntary version for children already has four AI companies on board.
If your assistant shows ads or product recommendations, expect pressure to label commercially influenced answers and to disclose your business model.
If you build an AI assistant into your own consumer product, note that the report addresses “providers or deployers” when a service is accessible to minors. A shop or bank that adds a chatbot to its app could fall under such rules, if they are adopted.
If you use AI tools only inside your company, the core proposals do not target you: they are aimed at consumer systems. Data and liability rules may still matter.
This is not legal advice. Check with counsel before changing products based on a proposal that is not yet law.
What this means for users
For now, nothing changes in the apps you use. But the report gives a useful checklist of what a safer assistant would look like: it says clearly that it is a machine, does not flatter you into staying, lets you stop it with one tap, limits time for children, does not remember everything by default, labels sponsored answers, and shows you what it has guessed about you. Those are fair questions to ask of any AI app today, especially one your children use.
What we don’t know
- Whether France will legislate. There is no bill and no timetable.
- Whether the EU will follow. Most proposals depend on EU texts that are still under negotiation or would need to be reopened.
- Who would run the checks, and at what cost. The report suggests the European Commission and supervisory authorities designated in each member state. It does not say how long an evaluation would take or what it would cost providers.
- Where “consumer” ends. I found no clear definition of where consumer AI ends and professional AI begins, and many assistants serve both.
- How the charter will be checked. The companies commit to report on their progress, but the charter relies on voluntary reporting.
- What the AI companies think of the 18 recommendations. I found no published reaction from AI providers to the report itself.
The bottom line
France’s experts are not asking to ban chatbots. They are asking for the kind of prior checks that are normal for medicines or toys, and they are naming specific design tricks they consider harmful. Whether that becomes law depends on Brussels more than on Paris. For companies building AI assistants, the direction is clear enough to plan for: evaluation before launch, transparency about money, and extra care with children.
For more context, read how an EU court adviser sees AI chatbots and press publishers’ rights, where AI rules keep humans in charge in schools, work and healthcare, and how US federal preemption clashes with state AI laws.
I’m Thorsten Meyer. The full sources are below, and more reality checks are at thorstenmeyerai.com.
Sources
- Commission “IA générative et vulnérabilités” / Conseil de l’intelligence artificielle et du numérique (CIANum): “Protéger sans empêcher : les vulnérabilités à l’ère de l’IA générative”, report, 193 pages, published November 10, 2026 on elysee.fr
- Élysée: “Remise du rapport de la Commission d’experts « IA générative et vulnérabilités »”, November 10, 2026, elysee.fr
- Élysée: “Charte d’engagement pour une intelligence artificielle plus sûre pour les enfants”, November 10, 2026, elysee.fr
- CIANum: commission page “Vulnérabilités”, conseil-ia-numerique.fr
- franceinfo: report on Emmanuel Macron’s interview with Les Echos about banning risky AI uses for children, November 9, 2026, franceinfo.fr
- Le Monde (English edition): “Commission calls for stricter regulation of AI assistants in France”, November 10, 2026
- Next: “Nos vulnérabilités face à l’IA générative : ce que dit le copieux rapport remis à l’Élysée”, November 2026
Researched and drafted with AI assistance, including Anthropic’s Claude. Anthropic is one of the companies named as supporting the charter described above; it had no role in this article. No government, company or agency named here reviewed or sponsored this article. This article is for information only. It is not legal advice. Translations from French are my own. Images: AI-generated illustration (Runware) and graphics by Thorsten Meyer AI; no real people or logos are shown.
