Alphabet’s Google is in talks to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in Character.AI, as the fast-growing artificial intelligence chatbot startup seeks funding to train its models and meet user demand. two sources briefed on the matter told Reuters.
A third source said the investment, which could be structured as a convertible note, would deepen an existing partnership that Character.AI already has with Google, which includes Google’s cloud services and Tensor Processing Units. (TPU) to train the model.
Google and Character AI did not respond to requests for comment.
Founded by former Google employees Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas, Character.AI lets users create their own chatbots and AI assistants while creating virtual versions of celebrities like Billie Eilish and animated characters. You can chat with It’s free to use, but a $9.99 monthly subscription model is offered for users who want to skip the virtual line and access the chatbot.
With a variety of roles and tones to choose from, Character.AI’s chatbot appeals to users between the ages of 18 and 24, and accounts for about 60% of the website’s traffic, according to data from Similarweb. This demographic has helped the company position itself as a purveyor of more enjoyable personal AI companions compared to other AI chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard.
The company previously announced that its website attracted 100 million monthly visitors in the first six months of its launch.
Character.AI is also in talks to raise equity funding from venture capital investors, which could value the company at more than $5 billion, the people said. In March, the company raised $150 million in a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz at a valuation of $1 billion.
Talks with Google are ongoing and the terms of the deal are subject to change, the people said, asking not to be identified because the discussions are private.
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In addition to its previous equity investments, Google has also invested in AI startups, including investing $2 billion in convertible debt in model maker Anthropic. Anthropic uses Google’s cloud services and the latest version of his TPU.
This is a recent trend in which major technology cloud service providers are contracting AI companies to use specific clouds and hardware in the computer-intensive race to build models and serve consumers. , including Microsoft’s investments in OpenAI and Google. Amazon is betting on humanity.
Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan said at an event in San Francisco last week that the agency is investigating cloud providers’ investments in AI startups for anticompetitive conduct.
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Date first published: Dec 11, 2023 14:34 IST
