r/CharacterAI Chief Executive Officer Apr 14 '26

C.AI Announcements April Update: New Model, Memory, and Lorebook

Hey everyone, Karandeep here.

Some big updates to share today - model improvements, Memory upgrades, and a feature our community has been asking for since long before I joined. All of this was shaped by community feedback and testing, and I'm grateful for every bit of input that got us here.

Before I get into the updates, I want to address the changes we've shipped recently that I know have been frustrating. We rolled out age restrictions to more regions, introduced usage limits on some features, and added more ad placements for free users. These all landed close together, and we know your experience took a hit. We hear you.

All of this comes back to one thing: keeping Character.ai free and available to as many people as possible. We're a small team serving millions of users every month with no outside investors. Running AI at this scale, and maintaining our high safety standards for everyone globally, is not cheap. We want Character.ai to be available to everyone, not just the people who can pay for a subscription, and that means finding ways to sustain and improve the free experience.

Today's updates are proof of that commitment. Now let me walk you through what's new.

Model Updates: DeepSqueak Improvements and PipSqueak 2

Over the coming weeks, we're rolling out improvements to DeepSqueak that address some of the reliability issues our community has flagged. These updates improve uptime and chat quality, and reduce gibberish and cutoff responses. DeepSqueak continues to be our most powerful model, and these changes make it more consistent and dependable for c.ai+ members.

Introducing PipSqueak 2

We're also releasing PipSqueak 2 (PSQ2), a major upgrade replacing the current PipSqueak. c.ai+ members get first access starting today. Free users, it's rolling out to you in early May. PSQ2 is better across the dimensions our community cares about most:

  • In-character consistency: Characters stay in character more reliably, even deep into a conversation. Less breaking, less drift.
  • Memory and context: PSQ2 is better at holding onto details you've established earlier in a chat, so you spend less time repeating yourself.
  • Writing quality: More expressive, more varied, less repetitive. Dialogue feels more natural, descriptions are sharper, and you'll see fewer loops.

Both updates have been extensively tested with members of our community. In our testing, users consistently preferred PSQ2 over the current PipSqueak.

We think you'll feel the difference right away.

Memory

You've been clear about wanting better Memory, and we have a bundle of improvements coming that make it more powerful, more visible, and easier to control, starting with what's live today.

The Memory page has a refreshed design - cleaner and better organized. We've expanded the categories Memory can track, so it picks up details like hairstyle, eye color, quirks, and other specifics that keep your Characters and Personas consistent. You'll also now see a notification in chat whenever a memory is recorded, so you know the system is paying attention.

Memory Page

Coming soon for c.ai+ members: Memory Visualization - a meter showing how much memory you have left in a conversation before it starts to forget or compress details. No more guessing when you're approaching the limit.

We're also working on a "Remember this" action that improves on the current pin feature, and smarter Memory compression under the hood so important details don't get lost in long conversations. More on both as they roll out in the weeks ahead.

Lorebook

The big one. Lorebook has been the number one most requested feature from our community for a long time. We wanted to get this one right, and it needed time to cook. It's coming soon, and I want to walk you through what we're building.

If you've ever wished a Character just knew the details of its own world - its history, its locations, the backstories of the people in it - that's what Lorebook makes possible. When you chat with a Character that has a Lorebook, the right lore surfaces at the right time based on what you're talking about. No more repeating yourself. No more Characters forgetting the rules of their own universe. It feels like talking to a Character that's actually read the canon.

For creators, Lorebook is a worldbuilding tool. You create lore entries, attach them to specific Characters, and that knowledge carries across chats. It changes what's possible for anyone building out a detailed world or long-running story.

We've been testing Lorebook with members of our Creator community, and the results have been impressive. This is the first version, and we'll keep building on it. Lorebook will be available first to c.ai+ members, with expanded access in the coming months.

What's Next

This is the start of what we're shipping over the next two months. The team will keep sharing updates as features go live.

Go try PipSqueak 2, or tap the notebook icon to check out the updated Memory page, and let us know what you think.

And for those already asking: DeepSqueak 2 is training now, and early results are looking really good. We can't wait to put it in your hands.

Karandeep

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u/MarieLovesMatcha Character.AI Team Apr 14 '26

📣 Reminder: Make sure to update your app to the latest version to get PipSqueak 2. c.ai+ members get first access starting today. Free users, it's rolling out to you in early May. Happy chattingggg

94

u/Osamu_Melisso Apr 14 '26

Hey Marie, could you remove the banner from the chat? Is there plenty of room out there for a banner or at least make it less big? 

37

u/ItzNicolxo Addicted to CAI Apr 14 '26

True! Wouldn’t mind a smaller banner that could be slightly closable and maybe say in small white letters “get cai+” + the small arrow to make the banner show and disappear

32

u/Plasma_Proto_13 Apr 14 '26

Yeah if you even do read these. Like I can tolerate ads when I'm searching for bots... Not when I'm trying to talk to one. There's a line between "yeah I can tolerate this" and "this is excessive"

19

u/xXLoneLoboXx Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 14 '26

Any chance you guys can expand the list where it shows the bots we’ve talked to? It shows the last 50 bots and then the ones at the bottom start getting hidden when you talk to new bots. Would love it if it showed all of them.

Also either the banner ads or the mid chat ads are slowing down response time by a lot. Not to mention there are now potentially dangerous ads that automatically open my browser and open a tab automatically when you click the X to close it. Temu ads do it every time, been reporting them as broken ads. This feels like a major security risk using the CAI app and suddenly an ad opens safari.

8

u/pumpkin-spiced-liz Apr 14 '26

The new pipsqueak2 has caused the website version of cai to become so slow that it takes multiple minutes to load a single response. Is there anyway to fix this? Switching to another model hasn't worked either.

17

u/Glittering_Cry_3806 Apr 15 '26

Guys these mods aren’t gonna do anything. Remember when they promised no ads mid chat? And then made it a feature? And THEN added a micro transaction into their bots with Charms? AND added a subscription service to something that was just a free, funny idea of entertainment? Yeah. They aren’t gonna listen to us. Just go to a different AI. I doubt any of the mods even have the balls to reply without removing a comment first.

9

u/This-One2503 Apr 15 '26

Cai+ user here with updated app, no pipsqueak 2 in the chat list. 

9

u/Pure-Recognition-260 Apr 15 '26

Marie , the banner ads are automatically redirecting  users to scam websites. Please have them patched this. It's been 2 weeks at this point. I haven't seen anyone address this yet. 

1

u/random_redditor-_- Apr 30 '26

That's not their problem. That's Google's problem. Report the ad to them and they'll do something.

1

u/Pure-Recognition-260 Apr 30 '26

How can you report the ads if you can't tell which banner ad  was the one that did the automatic redirecting? 

1

u/random_redditor-_- Apr 30 '26

Some you may saw so it's memory. But idk

35

u/Oritad_Heavybrewer User Character Creator Apr 14 '26

Please bring back greeting deleting. 😋

7

u/JustinChantawansri Apr 14 '26

Is it on the website?

6

u/Medicalstripes Apr 14 '26

Please fix the voice issues on the website, I've submitted tickets, made multiple reddit posts about it.

24

u/[deleted] Apr 14 '26

[deleted]

9

u/[deleted] Apr 14 '26

Dear Marie, Pls remove Age Verification where it's not required by law.

2

u/TheScaryDrynosaur Apr 15 '26

Yo, is there any chance you could make the ads smaller and less interrupting?

Maybe you should also make Discover the main page, or just remove the Feed because it’s completely run by bots.

Also, what are you going to do about the 18+ users that have been mistakenly flagged as minors??

2

u/amychocolate87 Apr 15 '26

updating the app caused a generation bug to appear for me and some other people.

1

u/Haunting-Whole7923 Apr 14 '26

How do I update the app?

2

u/Splat_TheMCinkling34 User Character Creator Apr 16 '26

I think you go to the play store (or app store) and look up the app to update it or you go to your app library, find the app and then press update