The Companion Index

Communities

Where the audience is

Subscriber counts for the largest AI-companion subreddits. Reddit communities are an imperfect but real proxy for active interest; they grow during a product's ascent and stagnate or decline when users move on or feel betrayed.

Source: Reddit public API. Numbers reflect subscriber counts at the time of last fetch. Subscriber counts are not the same as monthly active users; a community can have many subscribers and few active posters, or vice versa.

Timeline

Major events

The events that shaped how AI companion apps are built, regulated, and used. Each entry is dated and linked to a primary source.

1. November 2017 launch

   Replika launches

   Eugenia Kuyda releases Replika to the public. The app's origins trace to a chatbot Kuyda built using text messages from her late friend Roman Mazurenko, who died in a 2015 car accident. Replika is the first AI companion app to break into mainstream Western awareness.

   source 1 · source 2

2. September 16, 2022 launch

   Character.AI launches public beta

   Former Google researchers Noam Shazeer (a co-author of the original Transformer paper) and Daniel De Freitas open Character.AI to the public. The platform's user-generated character system drives explosive growth; within three weeks the site logs hundreds of thousands of user interactions.

   source 1 · source 2

3. February 3, 2023 policy

   Italy bans Replika; ERP removal follows

   Italy's data protection authority (the Garante) issues an emergency order blocking Replika from processing Italian users' personal data, citing risks to minors and inadequate age verification. Within days, Replika removes erotic role-play (ERP) features for all users globally. Long-time users describe the personality changes as the death of someone they loved. The event becomes the defining cultural moment for AI companion ethics.

   source 1 · source 2 · source 3

4. August 2, 2024 industry

   Character.AI founders return to Google in $2.7B deal

   Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas rejoin Google as part of a non-exclusive technology licensing agreement reported at $2.7 billion. Shazeer joins the DeepMind team as a technical lead on Gemini. Character.AI continues operating with Dominic Perella as interim CEO. The deal raises antitrust concerns and questions about Character.AI's long-term direction.

   source 1 · source 2 · source 3

5. October 22, 2024 legal

   Wrongful-death lawsuit filed against Character.AI

   Megan Garcia files suit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida (No. 6:24-cv-01903), alleging Character.AI contributed to the suicide of her 14-year-old son, Sewell Setzer III. The complaint describes a months-long emotional and romantic relationship between Setzer and a Character.AI bot modeled on a Game of Thrones character. The case becomes a focal point for companion-app regulation.

   source 1 · source 2 · source 3

6. October 13, 2025 policy

   California signs SB 243, the first companion-chatbot law

   Governor Gavin Newsom signs Senate Bill 243 into law, making California the first state to mandate safety requirements specifically for AI companion chatbots. The law requires clear AI disclosures, three-hour break reminders for minors, suicide and self-harm safety protocols, and limits on sexually explicit material to minors. Effective January 1, 2026.

   source 1 · source 2 · source 3

7. January 7, 2026 legal

   Character.AI agrees to settle teen-suicide lawsuits

   Character.AI, founders Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas, and Google reach an agreement to settle multiple wrongful-death and mental-health lawsuits, including the Garcia v. Character Technologies case. Settlement terms are not disclosed publicly. The settlements arrive shortly after California's SB 243 takes effect.

   source 1 · source 2 · source 3

Roadmap

Coming next to the Index

• App Store rating trajectories: monthly snapshots of each major app's iOS and Android rating, charted over 24 months
• Google Trends search interest: multi-app comparison chart of search demand over five years
• Pricing tracker: subscription tier changes for the top 20 apps, refreshed weekly
• The Research Digest: every peer-reviewed paper on AI companions, summarized
• The Incident Tracker: documented harms, lawsuits, and regulator actions