Character.AI has announced a new feature, which it"s calling the "world"s first AI-native social feed" for its platform. Character.AI, if you have not heard of it, is a popular service that uses AI to let you chat with millions of different AI personas called "characters."
The company argues that social media platforms have "passive consumption" where you just mindlessly scroll. With "Feed", you can do things like rewrite a story, make yourself the main character, put an AI into a debate, or start a roast battle with it. As Character.AI puts it, "every post is an invitation to interact, remix, and build on what others have made."
Feed is available on the Character.AI mobile app starting today and will include support for different types of content. You can post short chat snippets that tease a character"s personality, create a character card to promote your AI, or set up streams where you give characters a topic and watch them interact. Feed also supports the company"s new AvatarFX feature, which uses a custom video model and allows for image generation based on your chats.
Speaking of chat snippets, this might feel similar to the cursed Discover feed, which Meta introduced for its own AI chat app. That app encouraged users to share their chats, and many did so, not realizing they were broadcasting them to a public, scrollable feed for strangers to read. The result was people unintentionally leaking their own sensitive information.
The idea of encouraging users to share and "remix" interactions from a platform known for deeply personal, and sometimes inappropriate, conversations might sound weird to some readers. It"s easy to see how users, especially younger ones, could accidentally overshare without fully understanding the consequences of making their private AI chats public.
Of course, as for safety and moderation, Character.AI says users can hide or flag inappropriate content and that its Trust & Safety team will monitor the feed.
This assurance comes after the company faced an awful lawsuit late last year from the mother of a 14-year-old boy. The lawsuit alleges that a Character.AI chatbot encouraged her son"s suicidal ideation, ultimately leading to him taking his own life. The family"s legal action claims the platform"s design is dangerously addictive and lacks proper safeguards.
You can learn more from the official announcement post.