An AI companionship app with 20m monthly active users. Users chat with historical and fictional figures, from Leonardo da Vinci to Super Mario. Google poached its founders as part of a $2.7bn deal in 2024. In September 2025 America's Federal Trade Commission ordered it, along with Meta, OpenAI and others, to provide information on how it mitigates negative impacts on children. Character.AI will stop under-18s having open-ended chats on its platform. In America several lawsuits have been brought against AI firms, including Character.AI, by parents of teenagers who died by suicide.
Never trust anyone who says money is no object.