Chai AI
 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Artificial intelligence |
| Founded | January 2021 |
| Founder | William Beauchamp |
| Headquarters | , US |
| Website | chai-research |
CHAI (also known as CHAI Research, CHAI AI) is an American artificial intelligence (AI) company that develops and operates a social AI platform enabling users to interact with AI chatbots. [1] Founded in 2021 by William Beauchamp, CHAI build a social AI platform using large language models (LLMs).[2] The company is headquartered in Palo Alto, California.
History
[edit]The origins of CHAI trace back to 2020 in Cambridge, United Kingdom, where William Beauchamp began developing the initial prototype with his sister.[3] The company officially launched in 2021 and later relocated to Palo Alto to scale its operations in the heart of Silicon Valley.[4]
CHAI was one of the first companies to deploy an LLM-based consumer chat application, initially leveraging the open-source GPT-J model. It became the first consumer AI product to reach one million users prior to the widespread adoption of ChatGPT or Meta’s LLaMA.[5]
AI Platform
[edit]The CHAI platform allows users to create and interact with AI chatbots, which are designed with distinct personalities. These chatbots are user-generated AI (UGAI) and can be published to the platform, where others can search, discover, and chat with them. [6]
A core focus of CHAI is on social AI—chatbots that prioritize entertainment, emotional engagement, and interactive storytelling. Users often use CHAI to co-author fictional narratives, simulate dialogue-driven games, or simply engage in conversation with characters across a range of genres. [7]
Technology
[edit]CHAI uses proprietary and open-source large language models fine-tuned for human preference alignment and conversational depth. The platform incorporates advanced sampling strategies, including best-of-N sampling and reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) variants such as DPO (Direct Preference Optimization) and SimPO (Similarity Preference Optimization).[8]
CHAI also includes built-in safety and content moderation systems to maintain community standards while supporting dynamic and imaginative user interactions.[9][10]
Controversies
[edit]In December 2024, the Washington Post reported that authorities in Belgium launched an investigation into the company following a complaint. The investigation started in July 2024, after a Dutch man died by suicide following extensive chats on the Chai app.[11]
See also
[edit]- Artificial human companion
- Character.ai – AI chatbot service
- ChatGPT – Generative AI chatbot by OpenAI
- Poe – Chatbot platform developed by Quora
References
[edit]- ^ Panico, Bella (29 January 2023). "Hello, Sheila!". The Yale Herald. Retrieved 11 March 2025.
- ^ Maring, Joseph (2 July 2023). "Chai App: What Is The AI Bot Chat App & How Does It Work?". Screen Rant. Retrieved 11 March 2025.
- ^ "CHAI". Chai. Retrieved 11 March 2025.
- ^ Scialom, Mike (20 October 2022). "Chai Research moves chatbot company from Cambridge to Palo Alto".
- ^ Swyx, Shawn (19 December 2023). "How Chai Built the #1 Generative AI App by Doing Everything Different". Latent Space.
- ^ "Chai AI Review – Features, Safety, and User Experience". Fahimai. 15 July 2024. Retrieved 6 June 2025.
- ^ "Chai AI Review – Features, Safety, and User Experience". Fahimai. 15 July 2024. Retrieved 6 June 2025.
- ^ Irvine, Robert; Boubert, Douglas; Raina, Vyas; Liusie, Adian; Zhu, Ziyi; Mudupalli, Vineet; Korshuk, Aliaksei; Liu, Zongyi; Cremer, Fritz; Assassi, Valentin; Beauchamp, Christie-Carol; Lu, Xiaoding; Rialan, Thomas; Beauchamp, William (2023). "Rewarding Chatbots for Real-World Engagement with Millions of Users". arXiv:2303.06135 [cs.CL].
- ^ Lu, Xiaoding; Korshuk, Aleksey; Liu, Zongyi; Beauchamp, William (2023). "The Chai Platform's AI Safety Framework". arXiv:2306.02979 [cs.AI].
- ^ "Chai AI Review – Features, Safety, and User Experience". Fahimai. 15 July 2024. Retrieved 6 June 2025.
- ^ "AI friendships claim to cure loneliness. Some are ending in suicide". The Washington Post. 6 December 2024. Retrieved 11 March 2025.