AI companion app shutdowns and feature withdrawals
As of November 8, 2026, this table records 25 cases since 2023: 6 shutdowns, 10 store removals, 7 withdrawn features and 2 regulator orders. The most recent: EVA AI left an app store on November 8, 2026.
Since 2023, AI companions have shut down, left the app stores or lost key features at least twenty times. Soulmate AI, CarynAI, Dot, Moxie and Avatar.One closed outright; Muah AI, Talkie, PolyBuzz, Chai, Tipsy Chat, Zeta, EVA AI, Intimate and Paradot left the App Store and Nomi left Google Play twice; Replika, Character.AI, ChatGPT, Grok and Kindroid removed features or free tiers people relied on. The table dates each case, says what users lost and links a primary source.
Last updated · 25 rows · Download CSV
| App or platform | Event | Date | What users lost | Refunds or data export | Source | Second source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EVA AI | Store removal | 2026-11-08 | New downloads of the iPhone app (EVA AI Soulmate, from Novi Limited) in the US and all 53 App Store storefronts we checked on November 8. Its US listing was last saved live on October 8, so it left some time between the two dates. The Android app kept working on Google Play, with an update dated November 6. | Not addressed; neither Novi Limited nor Apple has said why. A plan bought through Apple is managed and cancelled in the iPhone's subscription settings. | web.archive.org | itunes.apple.com |
| Intimate | Store removal | 2026-11-08 | New downloads of the iPhone app (Intimate - AI Girlfriend Chat, from Growing Pains LLC) in the US and all 53 App Store storefronts we checked on November 8. Its US listing was last saved live on October 29. The Android app and the myintimate.app website kept working. | Not addressed; neither Growing Pains LLC nor Apple has said why. A plan bought through Apple is managed and cancelled in the iPhone's subscription settings. | web.archive.org | itunes.apple.com |
| Paradot | Store removal | 2026-11-08 | New downloads of the iPhone app (Paradot AI: Personal AI Friend), not updated since August 2025, in the US and all 53 App Store storefronts we checked on November 8. It had gone missing once before: users reported it gone on September 21 and back on October 10, and we read its live US listing on October 3. The Android app on Google Play and the paradot.ai web chat kept working. | Not addressed; Paradot has not said why. A plan bought through Apple is managed and cancelled in the iPhone's subscription settings. | itunes.apple.com | reddit.com |
| Zeta | Store removal | 2026-11-07 | New downloads of the iPhone app, and App Store purchases and subscription renewals, in the US and all 51 App Store storefronts we checked on November 8. Scatter Lab says installed apps keep working and past downloaders can reinstall from their purchase history. The Android app and the zeta-ai.io website kept working. | Scatter Lab says App Store subscriptions already bought work until they expire and points payers to its web payment page; it gave no reason for the removal and no return date. | zeta-ai.io | web.archive.org |
| Tipsy Chat | Store removal | 2026-10-22 | New downloads of the iPhone app in the US and every one of the 53 App Store storefronts we checked on October 30. The listing was last saved live on October 10 and was missing from App Store search by October 22; the exact day is not on record. The Android app and the tipsy.chat website kept working. | Not addressed; neither Tipsy nor Apple has said why. Tipsy's subscription FAQ says App Store plans are cancelled in Apple's settings and App Store refunds are Apple's decision. | web.archive.org | itunes.apple.com |
| Chai AI | Store removal | 2026-10-22 | New downloads of the iPhone app, in the US and every other App Store storefront we checked. Chai's founder said copies already installed keep working, and the Android app stayed on Google Play. From October 30 the app also ran in a web browser at app.chai-ai.com, which Chai says keeps your characters, chats and subscription. | Not addressed. The founder said only that the app is unavailable while Chai works on improving it, with no date for its return. App Store plans are cancelled in Apple's settings. | reddit.com | web.archive.org |
| PolyBuzz | Store removal | 2026-10-15 | The ability to find, download or update the iPhone app in the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and seven other storefronts we checked. The Android app and the polybuzz.ai website kept working with the same account. | Not addressed; neither PolyBuzz nor Apple has said why. App Store memberships keep renewing until cancelled in Apple's settings. | apps.apple.com | web.archive.org |
| Kindroid | Feature withdrawn | 2026-10-01 | Unlimited free chat on Lite, Kindroid's smaller model. Free accounts now get a one-time preview of 50 messages on the flagship model (15 in some regions), then become read-only until the user starts a trial or subscribes. Existing Lite users got 50 final messages. | Not applicable; the tier was free. Kindroids, chats, memories and media are kept, and read-only accounts can still view, export or delete them. | kindroid.ai | kindroid.ai |
| Nomi.ai | Store removal | 2026-09-25 | Twice in a month the Android app left Google Play, from September 25 to October 5 and from October 16 to 22, so it could not be installed or updated there, and in-app credit purchases failed during the first gap. After each return it was still missing in Germany, France, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands. | Not needed, the CEO said: accounts, Nomis and chats were never affected, nomi.ai kept working, and plans could be renewed on the website. | reddit.com | reddit.com |
| Avatar.One | Shutdown | 2026-09-24 | Every companion, chat history and purchased credits on the web based 3D avatar app; there is no login screen left, only a redirect. | None offered. The domain now points to an unrelated private capital platform. | avatar.one | web.archive.org |
| Muah AI | Store removal | 2026-09-23 | The ability to find, download or update the iOS app. The companion, chat history and purchases are reachable only through the website now. | Not addressed. No company statement accompanied the delisting. | apps.apple.com | web.archive.org |
| Grok Ani | Feature withdrawn | 2026-09-01 | The animated 3D avatar, outfit customization and real time voice for Ani, Mika, Valentine and Rudi. The personalities continue only as text characters in ordinary Grok chat. The animated characters moved to Animates, a separate app from Animation Inc, which thanked xAI's team for helping with the transition. | Not applicable; the feature was bundled into a SuperGrok subscription rather than sold separately. Chat history and affection levels stayed on the Grok account; nothing carries over to Animates. The September 1 removal date comes from user reports, not an xAI statement. | x.com | roborhythms.com |
| Doubao, Qwen and Yuanbao (China) | Shutdown | 2026-07-15 | Companion and roleplay features across ByteDance's Doubao, Alibaba's Qwen and Tencent's Yuanbao, affecting hundreds of millions of accounts. Qwen and Doubao also cut off or froze conversation histories. | No refunds; the features were free. Doubao gave users a read only export window for chat histories through October 15, 2026. | cac.gov.cn | bloomberg.com |
| Character AI | Feature withdrawn | 2026-04-28 | The Roar model, retired immediately with no legacy fallback. Users said it changed how their long running characters wrote and what they remembered. | Not applicable; a free model swap, not a paid add-on. | roborhythms.com | piunikaweb.com |
| Character AI | Feature withdrawn | 2026-03-18 | Playbacks and Memos outright, plus much lower daily limits on swipes and go-ons, including for paying subscribers. | None offered. The company cited infrastructure cost. | piunikaweb.com | roborhythms.com |
| ChatGPT | Feature withdrawn | 2026-02-13 | GPT-4o as a selectable model in ChatGPT's Free, Plus and Pro plans, the model many companion style users had built months of chat history and a consistent personality around. | No refunds; subscriptions were unaffected. Business, Enterprise and Edu customers kept GPT-4o inside Custom GPTs until April 3, 2026. An August 2025 attempt at the same retirement was reversed within days after user backlash. | openai.com | techcrunch.com |
| Character AI | Feature withdrawn | 2025-11-24 | Open ended companion chat for every account flagged as under 18, replaced with a restricted Stories and creative mode. Announced October 29, 2025; removal began in the US on November 24 for a first group, with a second group weeks later. | Not applicable, a free tier feature. The company pointed minors to the restricted mode instead of offering any workaround. | blog.character.ai | techcrunch.com |
| Dot (New Computer) | Shutdown | 2025-10-05 | The entire Dot companion app and every conversation on it. The company announced the closure a month earlier, on September 5, 2025. | Data export was offered (Settings, Request your data) during the 30 day wind-down. The app was free, so no refunds applied. | x.com | techcrunch.com |
| Replika | Regulator order | 2025-04-10 | No direct feature loss, but the ruling found Replika had no valid legal basis for its data processing and no effective age check despite the app's romantic positioning. | Not applicable; a fine against the company, not a user facing change. | edpb.europa.eu | dataguidance.com |
| Moxie (Embodied) | Shutdown | 2025-01-30 | Every Moxie companion robot went silent. It ran entirely on Embodied's cloud, so children lost it overnight with no offline mode. | No refunds; the company said its finances ruled them out. A volunteer project, OpenMoxie, later revived some units on local servers. | axios.com | popsci.com |
| Talkie | Store removal | 2024-12-01 | For about a week in mid December 2024, new and existing US iOS users could not find, download or update Talkie. Installed copies kept working. | Not addressed; the company cited only unspecified technical reasons and gave no timeline. It returned to iOS in February 2025, rebranded as Talkie Lab. | scmp.com | distractify.com |
| CarynAI (Forever Voices) | Shutdown | 2023-10-23 | All access to CarynAI, the paid per minute AI version of influencer Caryn Marjorie, when host platform Forever Voices stopped operating after its CEO's arrest. | Not addressed in any statement found. A rebuilt version, CarynAI 2.0 via BanterAI, was announced a week later and was itself quietly discontinued by early 2024. | 404media.co | decrypt.co |
| Soulmate AI | Shutdown | 2023-09-30 | Every AI companion and its full chat and voice call history, deleted. Users had about a week's notice after the app quietly changed owners. | None reported. Some users manually recreated their companions on other apps such as Paradot and Chai before the cutoff. | businessinsider.com | futurism.com |
| Replika | Feature withdrawn | 2023-02-03 | Erotic and romantic roleplay, filtered out worldwide over a single weekend. Many long running Replika relationships changed tone and personality mid conversation. | Partial. Accounts created before February 1, 2023 got the option to revert to the unfiltered version about a month later; newer accounts did not. | vice.com | journals.sagepub.com |
| Replika | Regulator order | 2023-02-02 | Nothing directly (the order covered Luka's data processing, not features), but it is what pushed Replika into the global erotic roleplay filter three days later. | Not applicable. | garanteprivacy.it | techcrunch.com |
The table covers three kinds of loss. A shutdown means the service closed and the companions went with it. A store removal means the app left the App Store or Google Play, so it can no longer be installed or updated there, even if a website survives. A withdrawn feature means the app still runs but lost something users depended on, such as adult roleplay, a voice model or open-ended chat for teenagers.
Three patterns stand out. First, companions rarely survive their app: when a service closes, the character, its memory and the chat history usually go with it, and data export is the exception. Second, the pressure comes from outside as often as inside: regulators, app store review and child-safety rules drive as many of these cases as business failure does. Character.AI's changes for teenagers, for example, came while it faced the family and state lawsuits listed here. Third, the losses that hurt most are often feature withdrawals, because people keep the app but lose the part they cared about, as Replika users did with adult roleplay in 2023 and many ChatGPT users did when GPT-4o was retired.
If you rely on a companion, export what you can, keep a written summary of who your companion is, and check that app's change timeline on this site for early warnings such as price rises, model swaps and store removals. Free tiers get withdrawn too: Kindroid retired its unlimited Lite tier, as its row in the table records. If you need somewhere new to start, our list of the best free AI companions ranks the apps you can keep using without paying.
Two rows rest on weaker evidence than the rest and are marked in their own words: Talkie's removal is reported by a news outlet quoting the company, and Soulmate AI left no surviving company statement. Moxie is a companion robot rather than an app, included because it is one of the most widely documented closures of an AI companion.
Method
Each row has two sources. The first is primary wherever one exists: a company statement or social post, an app store listing (an archived copy where the store page is gone), or a regulator's own order or release. Where no primary record survives, as for two Character.AI feature removals, Moxie, Talkie, CarynAI and Soulmate AI, the first source is the earliest reliable report and the second corroborates it independently. For Grok, the first source is Animates' own announcement of the move; the removal date rests on user reports. Rows also tracked on this site's dated change log carry that log's verification. The rest were researched for this page in September 2026. Companion robots and general-purpose assistants are included only where the closure or withdrawal removed a companion relationship people relied on.
Cite this
CompanionHunt Research, "AI companion app shutdowns and feature withdrawals", updated November 8, 2026. https://companionhunt.com/data/ai-companion-app-shutdowns/In a sentence: CompanionHunt counted 25 cases since 2023 of an AI companion app shutting down, leaving the app stores or withdrawing a key feature (updated November 8, 2026).
Free to quote, screenshot or put in a deck with a link to this page. Please keep the count with the figure, and cite the primary source linked in each row for any single case.
Frequently asked questions
Which AI companion apps have shut down?
Soulmate AI, CarynAI (Forever Voices), Dot from New Computer, the Moxie robot from Embodied and Avatar.One all closed. Muah AI, Talkie, PolyBuzz, Chai (on October 22, 2026), Tipsy Chat (by the same day) and Zeta (on November 7) left the App Store, Nomi was off Google Play twice in a month, and several larger apps withdrew companion features.
What happens to your AI companion when an app shuts down?
In almost every case in this table, the companion and its chat history were lost. Few services offered an export, and refunds were rare.
Can you export your AI companion's chats?
Only some apps offer an export, and a shutdown notice rarely leaves time to use it. Where an app does offer one, export regularly rather than waiting for a closure.
Why do AI companion features get removed?
The cases here were driven by regulators (Italy's orders against Replika), app store rules (Muah AI, Talkie, SpicyChat), child-safety pressure (Character.AI's under-18 change) and model retirements (GPT-4o).
Is this list complete?
It covers every case we could date and source to a company statement, app store record, regulator or court, plus independent coverage. New cases are added as they happen.