Character.AI
Character.AI is an AI Companions & Character company founded in 2021 and based in Menlo Park, United States. It has raised $193M in total funding, most recently a Series A in 2023 at a $1B valuation.
Character.AI (legal entity Character Technologies) was launched in 2022 by former Google researchers Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas to let anyone build and talk to AI characters, from historical figures to original personas. It became one of the most-used consumer AI apps. In August 2024 Google paid roughly $2.7 billion in a deal that licensed Character.AI's models non-exclusively and returned Shazeer, De Freitas and a group of researchers to Google, buying out venture investors at about a $2.5 billion valuation; the company remained independent and is now led by CEO Karandeep Anand. In late 2025 it overhauled teen safety, ending open-ended chat for users under 18 by November 2025 amid lawsuits and regulatory scrutiny.
It defined the consumer character-chat category and its founders' return to Google made it a flashpoint for both AI antitrust and teen-safety debates.
character.ai ↗·AI Companions & Character·
United States·private 
