Character.AI, the Google-backed AI chatbot supplier with tens of thousands and thousands of month-to-month lively customers, announced on Friday that Karandeep Anand, the previous VP of Enterprise 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 function at a pivotal second for the chatbot supplier, as the corporate tries to concurrently develop its platform whereas combatting baby security issues. In current months, Character.AI has added an array of latest security options in mild of an lively lawsuit, which alleges that one of many firm’s chatbots played a role in the death 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 just lately, Anand served because the president of the fintech startup Brex.
Anand is taking up Character.AI simply over 10 months after Google hired 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 take care of Google prompted federal regulators to investigate the companies’ relationship over antitrust issues. It’s considered one of many reverse-acquihire offers within the AI startup area that’s obtained regulatory scrutiny, alongside Microsoft’s deal with Inflection.AI.
Character.AI has raised greater than $150 million in enterprise funding, largely from Andreessen Horowitz.
In a weblog publish, Anand mentioned considered one of his first priorities can be making security filters “much less overbearing.” The brand new CEO famous that the corporate cares deeply about customers security, however that too typically, “the app filters issues which might be completely innocent.”
Anand additionally mentioned 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 might be purely designed for leisure, which Character.AI focuses on, are rising into an enormous marketplace for generative AI — a development that’s been shocking 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 line with knowledge from Sensor Tower.