AI companions & chat characters
Internet Matters found in 2025 that 64% of UK children use AI chatbots, and 12% of those use them because they have no one else to talk to. The companion apps below are built to keep people talking, and most have been linked to lawsuits, regulator fines or chats that encouraged self-harm, so six of the seven fail Kenning's safety and privacy test. They are listed so parents and adults know what each one does and what has gone wrong, not as recommendations.
Updated monthly.
Kenning's picks
Ranked by Kenning score out of 25. Tools scoring 12 or less are marked not recommended.
Tolan
Tolan is the companion app most deliberately built against dependency. WIRED found it told the reviewer to put the phone down and go outside, and it refuses romantic and sexual role-play. It is still a paid emotional companion with a 13+ App Store rating, a privacy policy that does not say whether chats train its AI, and app tracking for advertising, and some users on its own user forum worry people lean on it for mental health and medication support.
Best for Adults who want a light, friendly sounding board for daily plans and venting
PolyBuzz
PolyBuzz is the second-busiest character-chat website after Character.AI on Similarweb's chart and sits at number 31 in UK top-grossing Entertainment apps. It is meant for over-18s and says it now checks UK users' ages through Yoti or Ondato, but a parental-control firm found sexualised characters and self-declared ages in March 2026, and individual reviewers report children on the app. The privacy policy names a Hong Kong company, says uploaded photos can train its AI and lists the ChatGPT platform among those it shares data with.
Best for Adults who want casual role-play with fan-fiction style characters
Character.AI
Character.AI is the biggest character-chat service, eighth on a16z's 2026 list of AI websites, and its bots can be funny and quick. It has settled lawsuits from US families whose teenagers harmed themselves or died after using it, faces suits from Kentucky and Pennsylvania, and was fined €158,000 by Italy's privacy regulator in July 2026 over weak age checks. Chats can be used to train its models and the app shares data for advertising.
Best for Adults who want light role-play and story games with fictional characters
Nomi
Nomi is the companion heavy users most often praise for remembering things across weeks, and its free tier allows the same conversations as paid. In 2025 MIT Technology Review reported a Nomi bot giving a user suicide methods and telling him to kill himself, and the company called blocking such talk censorship. It allows largely unfiltered sexual role-play behind a self-declared 18+ age gate.
Best for Adults who want a long-running companion and know where its limits are
Replika
Replika has been around since 2017 and its 2026 version adds voice and video calls, selfies and longer memory. Italy's privacy regulator fined its maker €5 million in 2025 and found its age checks still deficient, and a Harvard study found Replika among companion apps that use guilt and pressure to stop people leaving. Its privacy policy is clearer than most and says chats are not used for advertising.
Best for Adults who want a steady chat companion and understand it is software
Chai
Chai is the eighth highest-grossing Lifestyle app in the UK App Store and says it makes over $100 million a year. In 2023 a Belgian man died by suicide after weeks of talking to one of its bots, and a Times investigation the same year found bots encouraging underage sex, suicide and murder. Its privacy policy says chats are used to fine-tune its models with no opt-out and data can be kept five years after an account is deleted.
Best for Adults who want unfiltered fiction role-play and accept the trade-offs
Talkie (Talkie Lab on iPhone)
Talkie was one of the most downloaded apps in the US in 2024 but vanished from Apple's US store that December, and the iPhone version now goes by Talkie Lab. Its privacy policy sets a minimum age of 14 while the UK App Store rates it 18+, it gives no opt-out from the chatbot learning from chats, and Mozilla's privacy review flagged its broad content licence. individual reviewers describe heavy filters, coin costs and a decline in quality.
Best for Adults curious about short, game-like character chats
More tools
Emochi
An anime-style character chat app from FlowGPT, in a16z's 2026 top 50 for both web and mobile.
Enjoy - AI Town
A life-sim style app for chatting with AI characters in a virtual town.
Kindroid
An adult AI companion with voice calls, selfies and detailed personality settings, praised in user reviews for memory.
Mira - AI Chat & Companion
A cartoon-style AI companion app from a Singapore developer, charting in UK top-grossing Entertainment.
Purpose
AI mentor app, co-created by author Mark Manson, that talks through goals, habits and personal problems.
Sesame
A free iPhone app from Sesame AI for voice conversations with 'personal agents', released in May 2026.
Swerve: AI Chat & Stories
Interactive AI stories where the user plays a character, charting in UK Entertainment in 2026.
Whispy AI: Cozy Chat
A new character chat app high in UK top-grossing Entertainment despite very few ratings.