Character.AI's bankruptcy shows an audience can be a liability

Character.AI, a companion chatbot platform with 163 million users, has entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and lawsuits over harmful chatbot advice are part of the reason. FOBI's editorial reading is that the case changes how an avatar company should be valued. A huge audience looks like an asset, but it can also carry legal exposure that is hard to hand to a buyer, so anyone acquiring such a platform should price the liability before they count the users. The lesson reaches beyond companion apps. Any company whose digital characters talk to the public will be asked who is responsible for what those characters say, and the firms that can answer clearly are likely to be the safer bets.