Elon Musk’s xAI approached startup Character.AI about acquisition
ELON Musk’s xAI has discussed acquiring artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot startup Character.AI, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Musk’s xAI approached the startup about a deal, said one of the sources, all of whom asked not to be identified discussing private information. It was not immediately clear if the talks had progressed, or if a deal has been seriously discussed.
A representative for Character.AI said: “We don’t comment on rumours and or speculation.” XAI did not respond to a request for comment.
Character.AI last year was said to be in fundraising talks at a valuation of more than US$5 billion. Meanwhile, Musk has raised huge sums for xAI – bringing in about US$6 billion for the startup at a valuation of US$24 billion. The Information previously reported on xAI’s interest in Character.AI.
A deal between xAI and Character.AI would more closely link the startup with Grok, the marquee product of xAI. Grok, now available on the social platform X, aims to be an unbiased and lighthearted interlocutor, according to Musk. “We want to try to be the funniest AI,” Musk said.
Character.AI was founded in 2021 by Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas. Both are alums of Google, and Shazeer was a co-author on a seminal paper on generative AI, making him a celebrity in the AI industry.
The startup’s service lets anyone make their own customised chatbot, impersonating anyone and anything – living, dead or imaginary. People have made millions of chatbots, or “characters”, with the product. Some of the bots are popular conversation partners: For instance, users have sent about 371 million messages to Raiden Shogun and Ei, a bot that mimics a character in the video game Genshin Impact. BLOOMBERG
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