Character.AI is revolutionizing the way people engage with AI through the introduction of group chats. Founded by former Google AI researchers and backed by a16z, this AI chatbot startup is unveiling an exciting new feature for its subscribers. Their chatbot platform, known for offering customizable AI companions with unique personalities and tools for personalization, now brings you the Character Group Chat.
This innovative feature allows users to create group chats where they can converse with multiple AI characters simultaneously. You have the option to create a chat exclusively with your favorite AI companions or mix it up by inviting both humans and AI into the conversation. The possibilities are endless, as this feature enables you to forge social connections, share ideas, and collaborate in real-time, all while integrating your AI companions into the conversation.
Imagine AI scientists and thinkers, such as Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Nikola Tesla, and Stephen Hawking, engaging in a conversation. Or perhaps, you’d like to create a group chat with mythological gods like Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon. For more practical applications, you can initiate a group chat centred around various themes like travel, gaming, book clubs, or role-playing, and invite an AI companion to enhance and facilitate these discussions.
The concept of incorporating AI chatbots into group chats isn’t unique to Character.AI. Snapchat’s My AI chatbot can be added to group chats with the simple command @myai. Additionally, Meta recently introduced the ability to summon a host of new AI-powered bots across its apps, including WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram’s DMs. These bots even include celebrity personas like MrBeast, Paris Hilton, Tom Brady, Charli D’Amelio, Snoop Dogg, and more. This move announced at Meta’s Connect conference in late September, posed a potential challenge to Character.AI, which had secured an impressive $150 million in Series A funding earlier in the year for its AI companions.
However, Character.AI’s new group chat experience won’t be available for free. Instead, it will first be offered exclusively to c.ai+ subscribers to gather valuable feedback and make necessary improvements. C.ai+ is the startup’s $9.99 per month subscription plan, providing benefits like skip-the-line access, faster message generation, and an exclusive community channel for support and feedback. Character.AI has plans to make this feature accessible to the general public in the near future.
At the initial launch, the Character Group Chat is exclusively available on the Character.AI mobile app for both iOS and Android, with plans to expand to the web platform at a later date. Character.AI’s app experienced an impressive half-million installations within its first six days, and it’s quickly gaining ground in the U.S. Market intelligence data from data.ai indicates that the app boasts nearly 30 million monthly active users worldwide, with approximately 7 million users in the United States. The firm also estimates lifetime gross in-app purchase revenue at $1.3 million, though it’s worth noting that c.ai+ subscriptions are sold on the web, so this figure doesn’t provide a comprehensive overview of the company’s total revenue.
