Why Everyone’s Talking About Character.AI in 2025 – Major Updates, New CEO & Controversy
In June 2025 Karandeep Anand, formerly Meta VP, was named CEO of Character.AI, succeeding co-founder Noam Shazeer, and he pledged a 60-day plan to improve memory, filters, and creator features. In 2025 Character.AI launched Scenes, AvatarFX, Streams, and memory tools, with Chat Memories available in May 2025, AvatarFX live on web in June, and Streams rolling out in summer 2025. Google’s 2024 licensing deal valued at about $2.5–$3 billion gave Google a non-exclusive license to Character.AI’s LLM, bought out early investors in a reverse acquihire, and kept Character.AI independent. By early 2025 Character.AI had about 20 million MAU and over