Character.AI, the a16z-backed AI chatbot startup created by several former Google AI researchers, has a new feature for its subscribers. Offering AI robots with different personalities and tools for customization, the chatbot platform offers a group chat experience where users and their friends can chat with multiple AI characters at once.
The Character Group Chat feature, as it has been called, allows users to create a group chat with just their favorite AI characters or can include a combination of humans and AI companions. The idea is that users can create social connections with friends, or share ideas and collaborate in real time, just like any other group chat experience, but with their AI peers now in the same group.
The company suggests that users could try getting scientists and AI thinkers to chat together, such as Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Nikola Teslay Stephen Hawking for example, or create a group chat with mythological gods like Zeus, hell y Poseidon.
For more practical use cases, you can start a group chat with friends about a topic (like travel, gaming, book clubs, or role-playing games) and then invite an AI companion to help facilitate and liven up those conversations.
The idea of adding AI chatbots to a group chat is not unique to Character.AI. Snapchat's My AI chatbot can be added to group chats with the @myai command, while Meta recently introduced the ability to invoke a number of new AI-powered bots in its apps, including WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram direct messages, including those based on celebrities like Mr. Beast , Paris Hilton, Tom Brady, Charli D'Amelio, Snoop Dog among others. The latest announcement, made at the Meta’s Connect conference in late September, was a potential threat to Character.AI, sparking a a whopping 150 million dollars in Series A funding earlier this year for its concepts on AI companions.
However, Character.AI's new group chat experience will not be offered for free. The feature will first be made available to c.ai+ subscribers for feedback and improvements. C.ai+ is a startup with a $9.99/month subscription plan which offers the ability to skip waiting rooms and access faster message generation, as well as a dedicated community channel for feedback and support, among other things. The company says it will later open to the general public.
At launch, Character Group Chat is only available in the Character.AI mobile app on iOS and Android, but will later roll out to the web.
The company's app initially surpassed half a million installs in its first six days and is said to be catching up with ChatGPT in the US. Third-party data from market intelligence provider data.ai indicates that the app has about 30 million monthly active users worldwide, and about 7 million in the U.S. The company also estimates its gross revenue from in-app purchases to be $1,3 million. dollars, but c.ai+ is sold on the web, so it's not a comprehensive look at your overall income.
