CHAI (also known as CHAI Research, CHAI AI) is an American artificial intelligence (AI) company that develops and operates a social AI platform enabling users to interact with AI chatbots. [1] Founded in 2021 by William Beauchamp, CHAI build a social AI platform using large language models (LLMs).[2][3] The company is headquartered in Palo Alto, California.
The origins of CHAI trace back to 2020 in Cambridge, United Kingdom, where William Beauchamp began developing the initial prototype with his sister.[4] The company officially launched in 2021 and later relocated to Palo Alto to scale its operations in the heart of Silicon Valley.[5]
CHAI was one of the first companies to deploy an LLM-based consumer chat application, initially leveraging the open-source GPT-J model. It became the first consumer AI product to reach one million users prior to the widespread adoption of ChatGPT or Meta’s LLaMA.[6]
AI Platform
The CHAI platform allows users to create and interact with AI chatbots, which are designed with distinct personalities. These chatbots are user-generated AI (UGAI) and can be published to the platform, where others can search, discover, and chat with them. [7]
A core focus of CHAI is on social AI—chatbots that prioritize entertainment, emotional engagement, and interactive storytelling. Users often use CHAI to co-author fictional narratives, simulate dialogue-driven games, or simply engage in conversation with characters across a range of genres. [8]
Technology
CHAI uses proprietary and open-source large language models fine-tuned for human preference alignment and conversational depth. The platform incorporates advanced sampling strategies, including best-of-N sampling and reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) variants such as DPO (Direct Preference Optimization) and SimPO (Similarity Preference Optimization).[9]
CHAI also includes built-in safety and content moderation systems to maintain community standards while supporting dynamic and imaginative user interactions.[10][11]
Controversies
In December 2024, the Washington Post reported that authorities in Belgium launched an investigation into the company following a complaint. The investigation started in July 2024, after a Dutch man died by suicide following extensive chats on the Chai app.[12]
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