Character AI breaks down recent updates, their impact, and what's coming next

Character.AI detailed what it claims is its largest update yet in a community post, responding to months of user complaints about broken features and overly aggressive content filtering. Whether this actually fixes the platform’s problems remains to be seen.

The community post explains that the company introduced PipSqueak, a new free model that supposedly offers better memory and roleplay capabilities. It’s their most expensive model to run for free users, though that doesn’t mean much if it doesn’t work properly. It recently went missing for many with no prior notice.

That said, the bigger story might be the changes to “Bob” – their nickname for the content filter that’s been driving users crazy. Character AI says they’ve trained it to better recognize roleplay scenarios and stop flagging innocent adventure stories. They’ve also made the “Soft Launch” mode permanent for adult users after heavy community pressure. Still, some creators are finding their previously approved characters suddenly marked as restricted without clear explanations.

New discovery features let mobile users filter searches by followed creators, languages, and tags. There’s also an archiving system so creators can hide characters without deleting them completely. Basic stuff that probably should have existed from day one, but at least it’s here now.

The update also brings creator tools that feel like Character AI’s attempt to become more social media-like. Creators can now record intro videos for their characters and generate shareable images from chats. A new Community Feed showcases trending content and creator posts, though reports suggest it’s causing performance issues on some devices.

These changes come under new CEO Karandeep, who apparently made fixing user complaints his top priority. But there are still problems. PipSqueak isn’t available to everyone yet because of computational costs, which raises questions about long-term sustainability. The rollout has been buggy, with the model disappearing and reappearing randomly for some users. Meanwhile, web users continue getting ignored as most new features remain mobile-only.

User reactions have been mixed. Some appreciate that Character AI is finally addressing long-standing issues, while others question why it took this long to implement basic features. The company promises more improvements are coming, but they’ve made similar promises before.

The real test will be whether these changes actually retain users or if people have already moved on to alternatives. Character AI built its reputation on being the accessible AI companion platform, but months of technical problems and heavy-handed moderation have damaged that brand. This update looks like an attempt to win back trust, though it might be too little, too late for some users.

For now, the platform seems to be moving in a better direction. Feel free to share your thoughts on the state of Character AI in the comments below.