Character.AI, the Google-backed AI chatbot supplier with tens of thousands and thousands of month-to-month lively customers, introduced on Friday that Karandeep Anand, the previous VP of Business Merchandise at Meta, is becoming a member of the corporate as CEO.
Beforehand a board adviser to Character.AI, Anand is getting into the CEO position at a pivotal second for the chatbot supplier, as the corporate tries to concurrently develop its platform whereas combating little one security considerations. In current months, Character.AI has added an array of recent security options in mild of an lively lawsuit, which alleges that one of many firm’s chatbots performed a task within the demise of a 14-year-old Florida boy.
Anand involves Character.AI with expertise operating promoting merchandise that reached billions of customers on Meta’s apps. Beforehand, Anand served as Microsoft’s head of product administration, overseeing person expertise on the corporate’s cloud platform, Azure. Most lately, Anand served because the president of the fintech startup Brex.
Anand is taking on Character.AI simply over 10 months after Google employed away the startup’s co-founder and CEO, Noam Shazeer, who had beforehand led core AI groups on the Mountain View big. On the time, Google additionally signed a non-exclusive settlement to make use of Character.AI’s expertise.
Character.AI’s cope with Google prompted federal regulators to analyze the businesses’ relationship over antitrust considerations. It’s one in every of many reverse-acquihire offers within the AI startup area that’s acquired regulatory scrutiny, alongside Microsoft’s cope with Inflection.AI.
Character.AI has raised greater than $150 million in enterprise funding, largely from Andreessen Horowitz.
In a weblog put up, Anand stated one in every of his first priorities can be making security filters “less overbearing.” The brand new CEO famous that the corporate cares deeply about customers security, however that too typically, “the app filters things that are perfectly harmless.”
Anand additionally stated he plans to enhance the standard of AI fashions on Character.AI’s platform, innovate round reminiscence options, and improve transparency round resolution making. He says many of those options are coming within the subsequent 60 days.
Chatbots which can be purely designed for leisure, which Character.AI focuses on, are rising into a large marketplace for generative AI — a pattern that’s been stunning to many. In 2024, 66% of the corporate’s customers had been between the age of 18 and 24, and 72% of the corporate’s customers had been ladies, in response to knowledge from Sensor Tower.
