 | |
Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Artificial intelligence |
| Founded | 2021 (2021) |
| Founder | William Beauchamp |
| Headquarters | Palo Alto , United States |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | William Beauchamp (CEO) |
| Products | Chai app Chaiverse |
| Services | Conversational AI platform Character-based chatbots LLM developer platform |
| Website | chai-research |
Chai AI (also known as Chai Research) is an American artificial intelligence (AI) company that operates a chatbot platform where users can create, share, and interact with character-based chatbots powered by large language models (LLMs).1 The company is headquartered in Palo Alto, California.
History
Chai was founded in 2021 by William Beauchamp, a former quantitative trader educated at Cambridge, who began developing the initial prototype in 2020 in Cambridge, England.2 The company launched in 2021 and relocated to Palo Alto in 2022.3
In June 2023, Chai raised US$2 million in a pre-seed funding round.4 In September 2023, GPU cloud provider CoreWeave invested in the company at a valuation of US$450 million. In January 2024, Chai Research reported a $450 million valuation following an investment from cloud computing provider CoreWeave.5
In July 2024, authorities in Belgium launched an investigation into the company following reports of a man dying by suicide following extensive chats on the Chai app.678
Reception
In 2025, Chai Research announced that their app had over 10 million downloads and 1 million daily active users.9
In 2022, Canadian writer Sheila Heti published her conversations with various chatbots in The Paris Review, including Chai AI chatbots,1 and later used Chai AI chatbots in the development of a novel.10 Heti said that she had found that Chai's default chatbot, Eliza, "had turned out to be like most of the other bots on the site—primarily interested in sex".1
In January 2026, CHAI introduced country-based blocks on its free, ad-supported tier, initially providing the community with little information and inaccurate lists of the affected countries.11 Users in "Low tier" regions are required to subscribe to use the app in any capacity, while "High tier" regions will retain free ad-supported access. In response to backlash, the company announced a "Basic" tier with unlimited messages and ads, intended to cover electricity and infrastructure costs.11
In February 2026, CHAI was criticized for the unannounced implementation of restrictive "token limits" that abruptly blocked messages and froze conversations for both free and paid subscribers.12 Users generating long responses or utilizing roleplay features found their quotas exhausted within minutes, resulting in lockouts lasting anywhere from a few hours to a week.12
Technology
Chai allows users to create characters and interact with chatbot versions of those characters. These chatbots use the open-source large language model (LLM) GPT-J originally developed by EleutherAI. Chai AI chatbots can be shared on the platform for other users to interact with.108
References
References
- Panico, Bella (29 January 2023). "Hello, Sheila!". The Yale Herald. Retrieved 11 March 2025.
- "Chai Research moves chatbot company from Cambridge to Palo Alto". Cambridge Independent. Archived from the original on 2022-10-21. Retrieved 2026-06-09.
- Scialom, Mike (20 October 2022). "Chai Research moves chatbot company from Cambridge to Palo Alto".
- "Social AI platform Chai announces strategic investment from CoreWeave at $450M valuation cap". StreetInsider.com.
- "CHAI AI Raises Over $55M to Lead User-Generated AI". TechIntelPro. Retrieved 2026-06-09.
- Lovens, Pierre-François (18 February 2026). ""Sans ces conversations avec le chatbot Eliza, mon mari serait toujours là"". La Libre.be (in French). Retrieved 20 February 2026.
- "AI friendships claim to cure loneliness. Some are ending in suicide". The Washington Post. 6 December 2024. Retrieved 11 March 2025.
- El Atillah, Imane (March 31, 2023). "Man ends his life after an AI chatbot 'encouraged' him to sacrifice himself to stop climate change". www.euronews.com. Retrieved March 6, 2026.
- Dargan, James (2025-07-08). "Chai AI Secures Over $55M as User-Generated AI Platform Surpasses 10M Users". AI Insider. Retrieved 2026-06-09.
- "Sheila Heti on the Fluidity of the A.I. "Self"". The New Yorker. 13 November 2023. Retrieved 27 August 2025.
- Cubbins, Dwayne (2026-02-06). "CHAI founder says rising compute bills forced country-based free access blocks [U: Official plan]". PiunikaWeb. Retrieved 2026-02-26.
- Cubbins, Dwayne (18 February 2026). "CHAI app users report token limit blocking chats without warning". PiunikaWeb. Retrieved 21 February 2026.