Character.AI introduces group chats for people and multiple AIs to talk to each other. Is this a welcome development given the innovations in the AI space?
About Character.AI
Character.AI is making the science-fiction dream of open-ended talks and cooperation with machines a reality.
The firm is developing the next generation of dialog agents, with applications ranging from entertainment to education to general question-answering.
Their dialog agents are driven by their proprietary technology, which is created and taught from the ground up with interaction in mind.
Character.AI introduces group chats for people and multiple AIs to talk to each other
An updated feature is now available for subscribers of the a16z-funded AI chatbot firm founded by former Google AI researchers. The chatbot platform, which provides tools to create your own customizable AI companions with unique personalities, is now providing a group chat experience where users and their friends may speak with several AI characters at once.
According to the company, the Character Group conversation feature enables users to establish a group conversation that includes only their favorite AI characters or a combination of humans and AI friends. Users will be able to establish social relationships with friends, or share ideas and cooperate in real-time, as they would in any other group chat experience, but with their AI companions now in the picture.
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The business advises users to try having AI philosophers and scientists communicate together, such as Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Nikola Tesla, and Stephen Hawking, for example, or to form a group chat with mythological gods like Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon.
For more realistic use cases, organize a group chat with your friends to discuss a particular subject or theme (such as travel, gaming, book clubs, or role-playing), then add an AI partner to facilitate and enhance those talks.
Character is not the first to propose the use of AI chatbots in group conversations.AI. With the command @myai, Snapchat’s My AI chatbot can be added to group conversations. Meanwhile, Meta recently made it possible to access a variety of new AI-powered bots across its apps, including WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram’s DMs.
These include bots based on celebrities like Mr. Beast, Paris Hilton, Tom Brady, Charli D’Amelio, Snoop Dog, and others. The latter declaration, which was delivered at Meta’s Connect conference in late September, presented a danger to Character. For its ideas on AI companions, AI garnered a staggering $150 million in Series A funding earlier this year.
However, it will cost money to use the new group chat feature from Character.AI. The feature will initially be made available to c.ai+ subscribers so that input can be collected and improvements can be made.
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The startup’s $9.99 per month membership service, C.ai+, allows users to skip lines and get access to quicker message production as well as, among other things, a private community channel for feedback and support. The company promises to eventually make the feature available to the whole community.
Character Group Chat is only accessible through the Character.AI mobile app for iOS and Android, but it will eventually be made available online as well.
The company’s app reportedly overtook half a million installs in its first six days and is catching up to ChatGPT in the United States. According to third-party data from market intelligence company data.ai, the app has about 7 million monthly active users in the United States and close to 30 million active users worldwide. The company estimates that $1.3 million in lifetime gross in-app purchase income, however since c.ai+ is sold online, this is not a complete picture of the company’s overall revenue.
