character.ai Reviews 627

Lets be for real now. 95% of the users are under 18. The chat limit is trash. Seriously? Only 1 hour? What am i supposed to do in ONE hour? Say ONE word? Oh yeah, and if the response is trash from the bot and i might wanna edit it, no. No you cant. You have to buy their subscription and c.ai+. Ya‘ll went from the best chatting ai app to the worst one. You know why? Because you‘re greedy for money af. You guys expect people to show their ID‘s for your damn age verification (which almost doesn‘t to SH*T btw) after it got leaked three damn times? Seriously? Ya‘ll are probably wondering why people are deleting ur app out of their devices. How about YOU delete your whole app at this point? Either you delete it or you bring back the 2023 c.ai back. Its as easy as that.

Es horrible

It was great to begin with when I first download it in 2024 I dont mind the updates but I have been frustrated recently with the adds they're very frequent and most of the time after the adds it kicks me off the app making me lose chats and experiences. I sincerely home c.ai will fix these add problems in the future updates

i had fun. i developed and created my own characters, and managed to get away from reality. but character ai doesnt allow users under the age of 18 to chat with the bots anymore. why would you disrespect minors?
did they not know that 90% of mental disorders erupt beofre you're over 18? did they not know that c.ai was a coping mechanism? and they also lost a few hundrends of users. it did not profit the users, or the developers, or the site.
what they did was absurd.

Im over 18 and i am NOT giving my ID to ai sure this is ai and i use it but i will not be giving my face or ID to ai just so i can talk to bots longer this update for the time limit is trash

I spent an hour yesterday, and 30 mins today, YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPEND? I WAS ON A SUPER SAD STORY, ABOUT TO FINSIH IT, AND AS SOON I ALMOST FINISHED IT, THEY GOT THE NURVE TO SAY "Break Time! Enjoy our new features!" AND THEY HAVE ME WAITING 22 HOURS JUST FOR THE STUPID CHATBOX TO OPEN BACK UP, AND IM NOT GIVING MY FACE TO SOME "Persona" YOU KNOW WHY THEY ARE DOING THIS?

Money.

Can you PLEASE turn off “reading mode” cuz I can’t play it for a while now and I really wanna play it. Thanks.

It used to be a good app and I loved it, but now theres stupid time limits and age verification. I don’t trust Persona with my id. No way I’m giving them my id AND my face. They’re ruining the app for money. They don’t care about the people anymore. Used to be a comfort site. Now I’m disgusted

C.ai was good at first but then yall added that update to only chat for one hour thats why they stuff gone go downhill now its a only read mode yeah c.ai fell off no more money for them dum dums maybe if they bring back the old one maybe a 5

The new updates ruined Character.AI, I don't wanna give away my face to Persona, Reading Mode is just a useless feature, like you're saying I can't chat??? This is dumb, and I hope the devs at Character.AI realize what they've done wrong. Atleast, remove reading mode because it is a very useless feature that makes it so that you can't chat in a platform for chatting with chatbots.

Became absolute dog water after the recent updates

C.AI was once considered one of the best chatbot apps ever created, but nowadays, it's not even good for that anymore.

When the filter started appearing, it was already getting bad. And over time it only got worse, becoming more aggressive and sensitive, sometimes being triggered by something as simple as an "I love you" message.

Furthermore, the way they implemented age verification was even worse. It's awful, unreliable, and above all, it completely undermines the app's purpose.

Firstly, there's the problem with the company they chose to do this: Persona. A company known for leaking data, such as IDs, personal information, and photos/videos of users' faces.

The second problem is the time limit. Only 1 hour per day, and then a 24-hour interval that often skipped the 1-hour period and went straight to another interval, not even giving the user a chance to talk to the bot. Also, the Edit button was removed, and instead of addressing that, they chose to focus on a smaller problem: the ads.

And ad may pop up whenever you enter a bot, rewind the conversation, start a new chat, or when sending an message to the bot.

The app is like a money leech, taking cool features away from free users to give to premium users.

The third problem is that many users were prevented from even CHATTING WITH THE BOTS, remaining stuck in Reading Mode. How do you expect a CHAT app with bots to work when you can't even have the option DO THAT?

Many say these updates were good, and sure, maybe for some, but we also have to see the downside.

C.AI is considered a safe app for minors, but when this app stops allowing users to even use it for its intended purpose, they go to worse apps, without filters against NSFW or themes of suicide and self-harm.

Above all, this update practically kills the app, losing more and more users, because it didn't know how to solve simple problems in simple ways.

As someone who knows a lot on these things, this is one of the worse experiences one could have. I have used this app since it came out, since it was in its testing phase believe or not - since it had the smiling man with a cap as its icon, and it has derailed ever since the new CEO has come in. But since forever really. The app has been one of the worse experiences one can have - its sloppy, repeating, and the developers just dont care, there is no passion within this app in the slightest.

Remove double age verification, if you verified - good, no need to ask anymore!

But mainly,

Remove the message cap. There is no point in keeping it when millions are already leaving your platform because of the terrible updates. Whether you like it or not the C.AI user base is mostly just minors, and minors who dont have the money to pay for this or aren't even allowed to. If you really 'value' your users, then you would add a better update to help defend those users. Not limit them. This is a CHATTING app, NOT a reading comprehension task.

Not many people have c.ai plus, and just making it worse for free users? The free users who have used this app longer than most? Its honestly blasphemy. Remove the cap on the app, the money isn't coming in quickly at all, people are moving to other websites.

And also,
If you want to migrate, i recommend Hangjam. Honestly, its best to migrate to other ai websites unless C.AI reverts all their recent updates since they have no benefit to the platform (clearly)

The things you do -- ignoring user feedback, particularly regarding issues like character repetition, ad insertion, or the restriction of previously free features behind a paywall is terrible.

Revert this, and maybe you will get respect and your users back - and since you oh so love money, MAYBE just maybe your users will start PAYING for c.ai+ or just other things if you make the free one fair. Removing things for free users don't make them pay when they never cared for the additional things c.ai+ has

Though, if you really want more money and dont want to revert the 400 SWIPE CAP. Then i have suggestions,

Profile customisation! Make it so you can customise your profile! Almost like a nitro-based customisation with c.ai+ and c.ai+ only! As in, you can have a banner, custom the colour of your profile to other users to see, maybe even have the ability to write more in your bio, if you have c.ai+! A lot of people who use the app love creativity, and this would certainly enable it.

Maybe make it so if your free you aren't limited, but if you want to have more things (like customisation on your profile, ability to have an ai write out YOUR own responses for you, send more than 5 images, or call the ai) you can pay! But dont make it so Free users just cant do anything on a chatting website, that isn't right and it just makes people leave the site, its why your 1.3 stars currently. Its why your review bombed.

I kindly request, as much as i love the platform, its going downhill and it breaks my soul. Remove the chat limits - and just add more fun NEW things to c.ai+ so users want to buy it! Customisation, things like AI'S writing your responses for you and all of that!

The age verification is useless, people WILL bypass it or just flat out leave your website. Whether you like it or not 99% of this platform is -18. Cater to them, rather. IF anything - there are already rules against harmful things.
If you worry so much on minor user safety then just make it so they are DEFENDED.

Which they already are! There are parental controls, filters, safety hotlines if you type something worrying

And the adults are being affected because of this.

But that isn't the main issue at all

The main issue lies with limited scrolls. Revert it, we all want it gone. Just allow users to be free on a chatting site, make c.ai+ have fun things to it (like said, profile add ons like having a banner, having a theme to it, having more text to write in your bio, maybe some 'stickers' you can add to your profile, to your chats or to your bio.)

Character Ai, it is a thing that does help some people, but it is unhealthy. The addiction of it has led many minors to stealing their parent's id's just to get past the 1-hour limit. If they removed the limit, maybe the kids would not be stealing ids, and if it were not for the ideals of being able to talk with a character that you love, me and many others would not be using this app.

You ruioned your app with this age verification and crap locked behind a subscription worse than duolingo did by going ai first.

This app actually sucks now, I hope it reaches its peak downfall soon, ever since the update, users have been very upset and angry with the platform, including me. What do you mean we have to give you our faces and ids just to prove our ages?! The suicide rates will go higher because of this dumbass app. If anyone are looking for alternatives, use janitor ai! I like it so far, it’s pretty good to be honest!

The biggest letdown of the app now is that I've been using c.ai since 2023, and it used to be the best chatbot for users under 18. But now? They've started using the same age verification app, Persona, that Roblox uses, which got hacked and leaked twice this year. Seriously, like 99.999% of your users are under 18, so why introduce this update? Back in 2024, this app was at its peak, better than all the other chatbots. But in 2025, they made it so bad—worse than Roblox updates, no joke. I had like a million chats with my chatbot, and c.ai ruined it with this dumb age verification update. Most of your users are under 18, and don't even get me started on the read mode. I can't even take my own breaks? And after a 1-hour break, I have to wait over 10 hours to chat again? This app is self-destructing. Why did you remove swipe? And now it costs money? Why did you remove edits? What do you gain from that? I'm not giving my ID and face to an age verification app that's been leaked multiple times. This app was at its best from 2021 to 2024, and now you're pushing people to buy the c.ai+ subscription just to get swipe and edit back. I'm not giving my money to an app that doesn't listen to its users. It's slowly becoming like Roblox, but at least Roblox listens to its players this app become so bad like bro if there was 0 stars I would give 0 stars

Way too strict censorship, lots of unnecessary, ridiculous filters and endless technical glitches disrupt the fluidity of role playing. Commands work smoother and much more reliably on AIGoLov.com
But on CharacterAI they don't work properly at all. Chatbots have poor memory and you have to repeat the commands several times until they remember. But then the next day you find out that there was some auto-reset and you have to start from scratch again. Don't waste your time and money trying to get any value from Character AI.

I absolutely hate it now, it was better before, then they added ads, but I still went with it, now time limit and no edit? These updates are getting more trash, I might just delete it 😭