Our Next Phase of Growth

Back in 2022, we founded Character.AI to bring personalized superintelligence to users around the world. Over the last two years, we have made great strides against this goal. We built progressively smarter models, launched immersive new features to speak with Characters, and rapidly grew to serve millions of users, becoming part of their daily lives. 

When Noam and Daniel started Character.AI, our goal of personalized superintelligence required a full stack approach. We had to pre-train models, post-train them to power the experiences that make Character.AI special, and build a product platform with the ability to reach users globally. Over the past two years, however, the landscape has shifted – many more pre-trained models are now available. Given these changes, we see an advantage in making greater use of third-party LLMs alongside our own. This allows us to devote even more resources to post-training and creating new product experiences for our growing user base.

We’re excited to announce that we’ve entered into an agreement with Google that will allow us to accelerate our progress. As part of this agreement, Character.AI will provide Google with a non-exclusive license for its current LLM technology. This agreement will provide increased funding for Character.AI to continue growing and to focus on building personalized AI products for users around the world.

Noam, Daniel, and certain members of our research team will also join Google. Most of Character.AI’s talented team will remain and will continue to build the Character.AI product and serve our growing base of users. Dominic Perella, Character.AI’s General Counsel, has stepped into the role of interim CEO. Perella, previously a longtime Snap Inc. executive, has been part of Character’s core leadership team since mid-2023. These changes go into effect immediately. 

As we enter this next phase of growth, we will continue to invest in our post-training capabilities, with the flexibility to use our own or externally available LLMs. We are excited for the future of Character.AI, and are committed to serving our users through innovative new products.

We are incredibly grateful to Noam, Daniel, and team for bringing Character.AI to life. We look forward to building on top of their contributions in this next phase of growth for Character.AI.