About 12 million people use Character.AI every month worldwide. That is the latest figure from the company, given in a court declaration filed during its Chapter 11 bankruptcy case in October 2026. The same filing says active users spend around 120 minutes a day on the platform.
This is a company claim, not an audited figure, because Character.AI is privately owned and does not publish regular financial reports. It is also lower than the “more than 20 million” monthly users the company claimed in February 2025. Other numbers you may see online, such as 163 million or 150 million, measure different things. This guide explains each one.
Character.AI Statistics at a Glance
| Metric | Figure | Period | Source type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly active users (MAU) | About 12 million | October 2026 | Court-filed company claim |
| Current and past users | About 163 million | October 2026 | Court-filed company claim |
| Average daily time per active user | About 120 minutes | October 2026 | Court-filed company claim |
| Monthly website visits | 150.87 million | September 2026 | Third-party estimate (AlphaMoat) |
| Share of web visits from the US | 30.8% | September 2026 | Third-party estimate (AlphaMoat) |
Every figure in this article carries one of four labels: company statement, court-filed company claim, third-party estimate or survey result. That way you can see how much weight each number deserves.
What Does “Users” Mean? Why the Numbers Differ
Many statistics pages mix up very different measures under the word “users”. Here is what each one actually counts.
| Term | What it counts | Why it is not “people using it now” |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly active users (MAU) | Different people who used the product in a month | This is the best measure of current use, but the company sets its own definition |
| Daily active users (DAU) | Different people who used it on a given day | Not publicly confirmed for Character.AI |
| Registered accounts | Accounts ever created | Includes people who stopped using it |
| Current and past users | Everyone who has used the platform | A lifetime total, not an active count |
| Website visits | Browser sessions | One person can make many visits, and most app use is missed |
| App downloads | Installs from app stores | An install does not mean ongoing use |
The chart below shows how far apart these figures are. They look contradictory, but they are not.
Why 12 million and 163 million are both true
The 12 million figure counts people active in a recent month. The 163 million figure counts everyone who has ever used the platform, including those who left. Put another way, about 7% of all current and past users were active in a month (our own calculation from the two company figures). It does not mean 92% of users “disappeared” in one go.
Character.AI User Growth Over Time
| Date | Reported scale | Metric | Label |
|---|---|---|---|
| February 2025 | 20 million+ | Monthly active users across its services | Company statement (engineering blog) |
| August 2025 | 20 million | Monthly active users | Company statement (CEO, via Wired) |
| August 2026 | About 16 million | Monthly users | Company or partner statement (Liftoff case study) |
| October 2026 | About 12 million | Monthly active users worldwide | Court-filed company claim |
Has Character.AI lost users?
The company’s own figures point downwards. Twelve million is 40% below the 20 million+ claimed in February 2025. Website traffic also fell between June and September 2026 (see below). Treat this as a comparison of dated claims from different channels, not an audited rate of decline. The “around 16 million” figure is less precise because “users” is not defined in that source.
Is Character.AI still popular in 2026?
Yes, though on a smaller scale than before. Twelve million monthly users and roughly 151 million monthly web visits is still a large audience. It also sits far below the largest AI chatbots, as the comparison section shows.
How Many People Visit the Character.AI Website?
AlphaMoat estimated 150.87 million visits in September 2026, down 5.5% on the month before. A separate tracker cited by Exploding Topics put June 2026 at 165.5 million visits.
Why 150 million visits does not mean 150 million people
A visit is one browser session. If you open the site on four days, that is four visits but one person. Web trackers also miss most activity inside the mobile app. That is why traffic should never be quoted as the number of users.
App downloads
Google Play shows a “50 million+” install badge for the Android app, and one app-panel estimate cited by Botmemo suggests around 22 million app users. Both are rough, third-party figures with different scopes. There is no confirmed current count of active app users.
Character.AI Users by Country: US, India and UK
Character.AI does not publish users by country. The best public guide is each country’s share of website visits. These are visit shares, not user counts.
| Country | Share of website visits | Estimated visits |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 30.8% | 46.49 million |
| India | 7.2% | 10.92 million |
| United Kingdom | 5.3% | 8.01 million |
One caution: another roundup puts the US at just under 19% of visits and India at about 9%. Different trackers, periods and country definitions explain the gap, so do not average the two.
Who Uses Character.AI? Age and Gender
The audience skews young. In a 2025 interview with Wired, the CEO said around 55% of users were female and more than half were Gen Z or Gen Alpha (company statement). A research paper citing Similarweb data likewise found that more than half of users were 24 or younger, although that is a traffic-based estimate, not a company disclosure.
How many teenagers use AI chatbots and companions?
Two US surveys give useful context, but both cover a wider group than Character.AI alone.
- Pew Research Center (2025): 1,458 US teens aged 13 to 17 were surveyed between 25 September and 9 October 2025. About 64% used AI chatbots and about three in ten used them daily. Among teens in households earning under $75,000, 14% said they used Character.AI.
- Common Sense Media (2025): 1,060 US teens aged 13 to 17 were surveyed in April and May 2025. It found that 72% had used AI companions at least once, 52% were regular users and 13% used them daily.
These are survey shares of a sample, not counts of Character.AI’s users. The company also changed its rules for under-18s after these surveys (see the safety section).
How Much Time Do People Spend on Character.AI?
Time spent is one of the platform’s standout numbers. The October 2026 court filing gives an average of about 120 minutes a day among active users, up from the 75 minutes the CEO quoted to Wired in August 2025.
A higher average does not mean more users. With fewer active users, the people who remain may simply be heavier users. The platform is mainly used for role-play, storytelling and chatting with AI characters, whether made by the company or by other users.
Character.AI vs ChatGPT and Other Chatbots
You cannot rank these services by one simple number, because they report different things.
| Platform | Latest verified headline metric | Period | Catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Character.AI | About 12 million monthly active users | October 2026 | Monthly, company-defined |
| ChatGPT | 800 million+ weekly users | Late 2025 / 2026 reporting | Weekly, and excludes some countries and under-18s |
| Replika | No comparable figure verified | n/a | Secondary sites do not match the method |
Even allowing for the different periods, ChatGPT operates on a far larger scale. Still, the two products serve different purposes: ChatGPT is a general assistant, while Character.AI centres on character chat and role-play. For other platforms, see our guides on how many people use Snapchat and Pinterest’s monthly active users, which show how the same “monthly active” measure plays out on social networks.
Who Owns Character.AI?
Character.AI was founded in 2021 by two former Google researchers, Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas. In March 2023 it raised a $150 million Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz, at a reported valuation of $1 billion. In August 2024, Google hired the founders and some researchers and took a non-exclusive licence to the technology. According to reporting, Google did not buy the company.
Ownership may change because of the bankruptcy process, so check the latest news before relying on this. The company is not publicly traded.
Age Limits, Safety and the 2026 Bankruptcy
Under-18 rules. In October 2025 the company announced that users under 18 would lose open-ended chat with AI characters from 25 November 2025, and it introduced age-assurance checks. Other features remain available to younger users.
Legal context. Character.AI has faced lawsuits and regulatory scrutiny over youth safety. These are allegations and legal disputes, and this article does not judge them. For the facts of any case, rely on court records and established news outlets.
Chapter 11. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October 2026. Bankruptcy does not by itself mean the app has shut down. The filing matters here because it gave the most recent sworn user figures. Reporting also says state attorneys general and the US Department of Justice raised privacy concerns about any sale or transfer of user data, and that the company reported about $2.5 million in monthly ad sales against losses of around $8 million a month.
Questions about age ratings and safe use are common for popular digital entertainment too, as in our guide to the Minecraft movie age rating. Parents who are unsure about a chatbot should check the age rules in the app store and the company’s own safety pages.
What Is Not Publicly Confirmed
Several numbers that appear on other sites cannot be verified from a primary source. Treat any page that states them as fact with caution.
- Current daily active users (DAU)
- Monthly active users for the US, India or the UK
- Current subscriber numbers and audited revenue
- The current number of characters created
- A reliable global app-download total
How to Check Character.AI Numbers Yourself
- Look for the date and the exact metric (MAU, visits, downloads or accounts).
- Find out who said it: the company, a court filing, a traffic tracker or a survey.
- Be wary of any page that still presents “20 million users” as today’s figure.
- Check whether a country figure is a share of visits or a count of people.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many people use Character.AI?
About 12 million people use it each month worldwide, according to the company’s October 2026 bankruptcy declaration.
How many daily active users does Character.AI have?
That is not publicly confirmed. The company reports average time spent per day, not a daily user count.
Does Character.AI have 163 million users?
Not active ones. The 163 million figure is current and past users combined, as stated in the bankruptcy motions.
Is Character.AI bigger than ChatGPT?
No. ChatGPT reports more than 800 million weekly users, against about 12 million monthly users for Character.AI. The measures differ, but the gap is very large.
How many people use Character.AI in the UK, US and India?
User counts by country are not published. In September 2026 the US made up an estimated 30.8% of website visits, India 7.2% and the UK 5.3%.
What age group uses Character.AI most?
Younger people. The company said in 2025 that over half its users were Gen Z or Gen Alpha, and third-party data suggests more than half were 24 or under.
How much time do people spend on Character.AI?
Active users averaged about 120 minutes a day in October 2026, according to the company’s court filing.
Does Google own Character.AI?
No. Google hired the founders and licensed the technology in 2024, but reporting says it did not acquire the company.
Is Character.AI shutting down?
Filing for Chapter 11 is not the same as closing. The process and any sale may change things, so check recent news.
Final Thoughts
The best current answer is about 12 million monthly active users, with people spending around two hours a day on the platform. Anything much higher is usually traffic, lifetime users or an out-of-date claim. If you also follow gaming audiences, our guides to how many people are playing Fortnite right now and the virtual-life game Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream cover other fast-moving audience numbers. We will update this page as new filings and traffic data appear.
Sources
- Yahoo Finance: report on Character.AI’s bankruptcy filing
- NPR: an AI chatbot files for bankruptcy
- Character.AI engineering blog (February 2025)
- Wired: interview with the Character.AI CEO (August 2025)
- AlphaMoat: Character.AI traffic estimates
- Pew Research Center: Teens, Social Media and AI Chatbots 2025
- Common Sense Media: Talk, Trust and Trade-Offs (2025)
- PPC Land: court-derived reporting on user figures
Last updated: 3 November 2026. Figures are dated company claims, third-party estimates or survey results unless stated otherwise.