Google Considering Investment In AI Startup Character.AI (Image: Google)

Google is reportedly in discussions to make a significant investment in Character.AI, a popular artificial intelligence chatbot startup. Reuters reported that Alphabet’s Google is considering to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the Character.AI. This comes as the startup is seeking capital to train models and meet the rising demand from users.

Character.AI is founded by former Google employees Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas. Notably, Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas previously led a team of researchers at Google that created LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications), a language model that helps power conversational AI experiences. The startup provides a chatbot service where users can access open-ended conversations with different characters based on real and imagined personalities. In August, the company claimed that the users on the platform spend an average of two hours a day with its chatbots.

In May, Character.AI announced a strategic partnership with Google Cloud. The startup uses Google”s cloud services and also Tensor Processor Units (TPUs) to train and infer Large language models (LLMs) faster and more efficiently. The new investment is expected to strengthen the existing partnership between Character.AI and Google. However, both companies have not provided any official statements on this investment. Reuters, citing sources, reported that discussions between both companies are ongoing and the terms of the deal may also change.

As demand for artificial intelligence (AI) is surging, Google is also making constant efforts to include AI in its services. In May, the tech giant revealed plans to infuse its dominant search engine with more advanced artificial-intelligence technology. Google made this move to compete with Microsoft’s Bing search engine. “We are reimagining all our products, including search,” said Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet, during a developer conference held in May.