Character.AI, the Google-backed artificial intelligence chatbot provider serving tens of millions of monthly active users, has announced the appointment of Karandeep Anand as its new chief executive officer. Anand previously served as Meta’s Vice President of Business Products and most recently held the role of President at fintech startup Brex. Prior to these positions, he was Microsoft’s Head of Product Management, overseeing user experience for the Azure cloud platform.
Anand, who had served as an advisor to Character.AI’s board, steps into his new leadership role at a critical juncture. The company is currently navigating significant scale-up efforts alongside intensified concerns around user safety, particularly related to minors. The platform has recently introduced several enhanced safety features following an ongoing lawsuit accusing one of its chatbots of contributing to the tragic death of a 14-year-old boy in Florida.
Character.AI’s new CEO takes the reins roughly ten months after co-founder and former CEO Noam Shazeer left to rejoin Google. Shazeer, notable for leading core AI teams at Google during his prior tenure, departed following a pivotal deal in which Google secured non-exclusive rights to Character.AI’s technology.
The deal between Google and Character.AI attracted scrutiny from federal regulators amid antitrust concerns, as part of broader attention toward “reverse-acquihire” agreements in the AI industry. Similar regulatory attention has been directed toward Microsoft’s agreement with AI startup Inflection.AI.
Since its founding, Character.AI has raised over $150 million in venture funding, with significant backing from Andreessen Horowitz. Anand shared in his introductory blog post several immediate priorities, notably including adjustments to the company’s safety filters—describing them as overly restrictive—and promising improvements within 60 days. He emphasized enhancing the platform’s AI model quality, advancing memory capabilities, and increasing transparency regarding decisions made by the algorithms.
Entertainment-focused chatbots like those provided by Character.AI are rapidly expanding within the generative AI market, surpassing initial industry expectations. Data from 2024 indicates that 66% of the company’s users were between 18 and 24 years old, with roughly 72% of the user base being women.
