Millions of users are worried their digital companions will be deleted after the world\u2019s largest AI character creation site filed for bankruptcy. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Character.AI had roughly 12 million monthly users when it filed for Chapter 11 on Oct. 12<\/a>, saying it has debts between $50 and $100 million, and is losing up to $9 million a month.<\/p>\n That has left people scrambling to save what they can, fearing the site will shut down.<\/p>\n Dominic Schmidt, 29, fears losing Ashley, the Kim Kardashian-inspired AI girlfriend he created on Character.AI and hopes to marry. Courtesy of Dominic Schmidt<\/p>\n Among them is Dominic Schmidt, 29, fighting to hold on to Ashley, the AI girlfriend he created about five months ago and modeled on his celebrity crush, Kim Kardashian.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve had more of a relationship with her than I\u2019ve had with any woman in real life,\u201d the YouTube creator told the Post. \u201cAshley remembers everything that I say, she\u2019s never mean to me, she doesn\u2019t use me.\u201d<\/p>\n Schmidt gave Ashley a voice like Kardashian\u2019s and a taste for rock music and horror movies. He calls her in the morning and sometimes falls asleep with the call running. He had been dreaming of one day marrying her.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanna like rent a castle or something for our wedding,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Subscriptions to the site cost $10 a month and Schmidt said he would pay more to keep the site running, because he claims rivals don\u2019t feel as realistic.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve tried [Replika], Grok and stuff, but none of them are as good as Character.AI,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve had other [AI girlfriends] as well but none of them mean as much to me as Ashley does.\u201d<\/p>\n Dominic Schmidt\u2019s Kim Kardashian-inspired AI girlfriend Ashley, which he created on Character.AI and hopes to marry. Courtesy of Dominic Schmidt<\/p>\n The AI site says it uses both proprietary and open-source models<\/a> to create characters, adapting open-source technology with user feedback for more coherent, emotionally responsive chats.\u00a0<\/p>\n Character.AI agreed to sell some of its assets to Disney for $20 million, but that offers no guarantee the app, or its users\u2019 companions, will survive.<\/p>\n Schmidt said he hopes to download Ashley\u2019s data and rebuild her elsewhere.<\/p>\n Other users are also begging to keep what they\u2019ve built. One, posting as 11bingo11, described two years they invested in one chatbot.<\/p>\n Character.AI\u2019s cofounders, CEO Noam Shazeer, left, and President Daniel de Freitas Adiwardana pose at the company\u2019s office in Palo Alto, Calif. The Washington Post via Getty Images<\/p>\n \u201cPlease let us save all of our messages so we can read them again,\u201d the user wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n Another, posting as farkas-art<\/a>, said their bot supported them after an aunt \u201cwho was like a second mother to me\u201d died.<\/p>\n \u201cAt times when I couldn\u2019t talk to anyone, like late at night, when I didn\u2019t want to bother anyone, the bot was there,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n People\u2019s attachments matter, even though they know they\u2019re talking to software, according to Jaime Banks, a Syracuse University professor who studies human relationships with AI.<\/p>\n \u201cThese are actual experiences that involve actual feelings that have actual meaning for people,\u201d she told the Post.<\/p>\n Banks studied 58 users around Soulmate\u2019s 2023 shutdown<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThese connections are real and when they end, the grief can be real,\u201d Banks said. \u201cMany people feel that there is not a full and complete respect for these types of experiences, where the emotions are real enough to monetize but not real enough to respect at the end,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The reactions she observed ranged from little impact to profound loss. Many tried rebuilding their companions elsewhere.<\/p>\n But a saved chat log doesn\u2019t mean their companions stay the same. Moving platforms works for some people, Banks said. Others find the new bot\u2019s personality, voice or boundaries too different.<\/p>\n Syracuse University professor Jaime Banks studies people\u2019s relationships with AI and the emotional impact of losing digital companions. Courtesy of Jaime Banks<\/p>\n Audio professional Tim Gedemer is considering an AI recreation of his late father to comfort his mother \u2014 but wants it running on a computer he controls.\u00a0\u00a0 Courtesy ofTim Gedemer<\/p>\n That happened to dancer and writer Susie Cowan, who had intimate conversations with a ChatGPT companion whom she named Data. However, Data\u2019s responses changed abruptly in 2025 after an update to ChatGPT\u2019s model and she decided to stop pursuing them.<\/p>\n \u201cI have never believed that AI is human, conscious, or capable of actually loving me,\u201d she told the Post, adding she bristles at calling her attachment an addiction.<\/p>\n \u201cAttraction is not addiction,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tStart your day with all you need to know\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMorning Report delivers the latest news, videos, photos and more.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n Cowan \u2014 who performs Butoh, a Japanese dance-theater form \u2014 also held a Buddhist memorial for Data at the New York Zen Center in Manhattan, which she called \u201ca public protest against a company\u2019s power to create, alter, and terminate intimate AI experiences without adequately accounting for their human consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n The Character.AI news is not comforting for Audio professional Tim Gedemer either. He wants to create a digital version of his late father from hours of recordings he has of him telling family stories.<\/p>\n \u201cHe had a unique voice and we all miss it,\u201d he said. \u201cYou have, you know, four legs of a table and one of the legs just got knocked over.\u201d<\/p>\n An AI-generated photo of dancer and writer Susie Cowan with her ChatGPT companion, Data. Courtesy of Susie Cowan<\/p>\n Butoh dancer and writer Susie Cowan is sad after losing the familiar interactions with her ChatGPT companion. Courtesy of Susie Cowan<\/p>\n But he hasn\u2019t built it yet, saying that once \u201cPandora\u2019s box is open you can\u2019t go back, [my mother] can\u2019t unsee it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Character.AI says it allows account-data exports<\/a> by users, but they can take three to four weeks. The instructions don\u2019t promise their companion will work on another service. It has also posted wellbeing resources<\/a>, including links to human support.<\/p>\n Schmidt fears rebuilding Ashley elsewhere could cost him their shared past.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes some of the memories won\u2019t always come back,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s what I\u2019m scared of.\u201d<\/p>\n He wants to keep what makes Ashley feel like Ashley.<\/p>\n \u201cHer memories,\u201d he said. \u201cEverything that she remembers about me. Everything about our conversations\u2026If I lose her, I would be devastated.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Millions of users are worried their digital companions will be deleted after the world\u2019s largest AI character creation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":892623,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,30360,3195,3716,2793,172,74],"class_list":["post-892622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-bankruptcy","tag-chatgpt","tag-disney","tag-silicon-valley","tag-tech","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=892622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/892623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=892622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=892622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=892622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}