Character.AI

Character.AI is an AI chatbot platform where users set a prompt to generate a personalized bot for conversation, described by Baidu Ventures' Gao Xue in late 2023 as "比较火的" in the U.S. market at that time [^C?]. The product became a reference point for China's AI startup scene: by early 2024, Chinese investors and entrepreneurs were chasing a "中国的 Character AI" wave, with some predicting a "百 C 大战" (hundred-Character battle) that ZhenFund's Koji later noted failed to materialize as expected [^C?

]. In the AI companionship space, Character.AI sits alongside domestic counterparts like 星野 and Glow as one of the defining products that attracted heavy capital interest, though the category has remained controversial between bullish and bearish camps [^C?]. Elsewhere's corpus notes a March 2026 report mentioning Character.AI in passing alongside newer entrants like EVE and Elys, suggesting it had become an established benchmark rather than the sole frontier by that point [^C?

].