What changed in AI companions
Companion apps mutate constantly: prices rise quietly, models get swapped under your companion's personality, policies reverse overnight. Nobody keeps the record, so users find out the hard way. This page is the record: every change we track, dated and sourced, newest first.
July 2026
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Industry shutdown
ByteDance, Tencent, and Alibaba shut down AI companion features as China's new rules take effect
China's Interim Measures for AI Anthropomorphic Interactive Services took effect July 15, 2026 — banning attachments strong enough to replace real relationships, targeting of minors' emotions, and training on private conversations. Tencent closed Yuanbao's user-built agents June 30; Alibaba's Qwen removed humanlike agents July 10–15 with conversation histories deleted; ByteDance's Doubao cut companion features July 15 (chat histories read-only until October 15). The largest simultaneous shutdown event in the category's history: hundreds of millions of users lost companions overnight.
Source: www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-... · technode.com/2026/07/06/bytedances-douba... · pandaily.com/bytedance-tencent-alibaba-a...
June 2026
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Kindroid pricing
Kindroid raises app-store prices; web billing unchanged
From June 5, 2026, Kindroid's iOS/Android in-app prices rose to cover growing store fees: Standard $15.99/mo, $42.99/qtr, $159.99/yr (previously ~$14.99/mo), and the Ultra add-on to $28.99/mo. Web billing at kindroid.ai stayed at $13.99/mo, $37.99/qtr, $139.99/yr — making the web the cheapest way to subscribe by a wider margin than before.
Source: kindroid.ai/docs/article/subscriptions/ · blog.storychat.app/ai-roleplay-app-prici...
April 2026
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Character AI model
Roar model removed as PipSqueak 2 becomes the default
On April 28, 2026 Character AI made PipSqueak 2 the default for every user and removed Roar immediately with no legacy fallback; Meow, Nyan, Soft Launch, and Goro moved to a legacy menu retired on May 8. Users reported longer replies, invented chat references, and mid-message character drift — model swaps on character platforms are experienced as personality changes, not upgrades.
Source: www.roborhythms.com/character-ai-pulled-... · piunikaweb.com/2026/05/04/outrage-charac...
March 2026
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Character AI feature
Swipes and go-ons capped, playbacks and Memos removed
Rolling out from March 18, 2026, Character AI capped free-tier swipes (community reports ~400/day account-wide) and go-ons (~15–25/day), and removed playbacks/Memos outright — including for paid subscribers. The company cited infrastructure costs; free users experienced it as a steady narrowing of features that had been standard since launch.
Source: piunikaweb.com/2026/03/11/character-ai-l... · www.roborhythms.com/character-ai-removed...
January 2026
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Character AI policy
Character AI rolls out age verification via Persona
Following the under-18 ban, Character AI layered in age assurance: an in-house age-estimation model screens accounts, and unconfident cases are pushed to third-party verifier Persona for selfie or government-ID checks. The rollout started US-only in late November 2025 and reached most users through Q1 2026, with some accounts shown a 14-day verify-or-lose-access countdown.
Source: support.character.ai/hc/en-us/articles/4... · piunikaweb.com/2025/11/25/character-ai-a... · piunikaweb.com/2026/03/20/character-ai-1...
November 2025
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Character AI policy
Character AI ends open-ended chat for under-18 users
Announced October 29, 2025 and in full effect by November 25, 2025: users under 18 lost access to open-ended companion chat (daily limits ramped down during the transition), replaced by a restricted creative mode. One of the largest policy changes in the category's history, made under lawsuit and regulator pressure.
Source: blog.character.ai/u18-chat-announcement/ · techcrunch.com/2025/10/29/character-ai-i...
August 2025
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ChatGPT model
GPT-4o retired with GPT-5 rollout; companion personalities change overnight
OpenAI's GPT-5 rollout replaced GPT-4o as the default model. Users with long-running companion relationships on 4o widely reported the new model felt colder, prompting a documented grief wave and, after backlash, a partial restoration of 4o access for paid users.
April 2025
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Replika legal
Italian regulator fines Replika's maker €5M over data protection
Italy's data protection authority (Garante) fined Luka, Inc. €5 million for GDPR violations: no valid legal basis for processing users' data, inadequate privacy notices, and no effective age verification despite the app's emotional/romantic positioning (decision of April 10, 2025, made public that May). The Garante also opened a second investigation into how Replika's models are trained on user data. Follows Italy's temporary ban of the app in 2023.
Source: www.edpb.europa.eu/news/ai-the-italian-s... · www.dataguidance.com/news/italy-garante-...
February 2023
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Replika policy
Replika removes erotic roleplay (ERP); partially restores it for legacy users a month later
Replika abruptly filtered romantic/erotic roleplay for all users in February 2023, causing the category's most famous user revolt. In March 2023 it restored ERP for accounts created before February 2023. The episode remains the canonical example of why policy changes need a public record.