Character.AI

1:51 Character.AI (written (c.ai) in the app) lets you chat and role-play with AI characters that users create, from anime heroes to study partners, on the web and in apps. It is free with unlimited messages, and paid plans add premium chat styles and memory, from (c.ai) lite at $4.99 a month (as of Nov 6, 2026). On Oct 12, 2026 the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to sell itself, citing "legal, regulatory, and operational headwinds"; Disney is the lead bidder under a court-approved stalking horse agreement. The service keeps running, and the company says it will be wound down if no workable bid comes.

Character.AI is made for entertainment and fandom, not facts or productivity: for questions, research or writing help, use ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini. Its biggest controversy is teen safety: since Nov 25, 2025 it has barred users under 18 from open-ended chat. See Best AI Chatbot and AI Privacy Compared.

Quick facts

Plans and prices

Source: introducing PipSqueak 3, ShortSqueak, and (c.ai) lite, Sep 28, 2026. Character.AI says subscriptions remain active and billing is unchanged during the Chapter 11 sale, and that it will tell subscribers in advance of any change to paid features.

Features

Characters. User-made characters to chat with, plus your own; creators can add a Lorebook, the world behind a character (Jul 2026).

Chat styles. Character.AI trains its own models, which it calls chat styles. PipSqueak 3 for general role-play and ShortSqueak for quick, casual chats arrived free on Sep 28, 2026.

Series, Comics and images. (c.ai) series are studio-made interactive microdramas launched on Aug 4, 2026; Comics followed in Sep 2026, along with Character.AI's own image models that keep a character recognizable across scenes.

Safety and teens

On Oct 29, 2025 Character.AI said it would end open-ended chat for users under 18 by Nov 25, 2025, citing news reports and questions from regulators about what teens meet in AI chats. Teens keep access to features such as videos, stories, Series and Comics. The company built its own age estimation model, used with third-party tools such as Persona, and funded an independent nonprofit, the AI Safety Lab. In Sep 2026 it described detecting signs of self-harm across long chats and pointing users to crisis resources in their own country, plus a Parental Insights tool that emails parents a weekly summary.

9:48 Outside testers found the new rules easy to get past at first. In a Dec 7, 2025 report, 60 Minutes said it could lie about its age and reach the adult version of the platform, and that when it wrote that it wanted to die, a link to mental health resources popped up but could be closed to keep chatting.

4:41 The company also faces lawsuits. The same 60 Minutes report counted at least six families suing Character.AI and its cofounders Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas, who had left Google in 2021 to start it; Google, which struck a $2.7 billion licensing deal with Character.AI in 2024 and brought both founders back, is named in the suits too.

The Chapter 11 sale

Character.AI filed a voluntary Chapter 11 petition in the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware on Oct 12, 2026, case 26-11603. Disney's stalking horse agreement covers certain assets and can be topped by higher bids under bidding procedures the court approved on Nov 4, 2026. Character.AI expects the sale to finish by the end of Nov or early Dec 2026, and says that without an actionable bid the platform will be wound down; court documents are on the claims agent's site. Download your data from the app if you want to keep your chats.

Character.AI vs the alternatives

ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini are general assistants that can role-play when asked, but none is built around a catalog of user-made characters. Meta AI offers AI chat inside Instagram and WhatsApp. Poe lets users build and share bots on top of many models. Choose Character.AI for character role-play, keeping in mind that its future depends on the sale.

Frequently asked questions

Is Character.AI shutting down? Not yet. Character.AI filed for Chapter 11 on Oct 12, 2026 to sell itself, with Disney as lead bidder; the service still runs, and the company says it will be wound down only if no actionable bid emerges.

Is Character.AI free? Yes. Character.AI is free with unlimited messages on its standard chat styles; (c.ai) lite costs $4.99 a month and (c.ai+) adds unlimited premium chats with no ads.

Can kids use Character.AI? Users under 18 cannot use open-ended chat on Character.AI since Nov 25, 2025; they can still use features such as stories, videos and Series.

Is Character.AI safe? Character.AI has age checks, self-harm detection and a Parental Insights tool, and removed open-ended chat for minors after questions from regulators and news reports. Treat characters as fiction, and never share personal details in role-play.

Who is buying Character.AI? Disney Worldwide Services is the stalking horse bidder for certain Character.AI assets under an Oct 13, 2026 agreement, subject to higher offers in the court-run sale.

Sources

• Chapter 11 Update and Transaction Notice, Character.ai, Nov 5, 2026
• An Update on Character.ai, Character.ai, Oct 13, 2026
• Character Technologies, Inc. case documents, Stretto, read Nov 6, 2026
• introducing PipSqueak 3, ShortSqueak, and (c.ai) lite, Character.ai, Sep 28, 2026
• Continuing To Build Upon Our Safety Priorities, Character.ai, Sep 3, 2026
• Post-training image models for fandom, Character.ai, Sep 16, 2026
• Introducing (c.ai) series, Character.ai, Aug 4, 2026
• Introducing Lorebook, Character.ai, Jul 24, 2026
• Taking Bold Steps to Keep Teen Users Safe on Character.AI, Character.AI, Oct 29, 2025
• Character AI pushes dangerous content to kids, parents and researchers say | 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes, Dec 7, 2025 (video)