Character.AI Introduces Character Calls Feature That Lets Users ‘Call’ AI Chatbots

Character.AI on Thursday introduced a new feature that will let users “call” a chatbot. These AI chatbots, also known as Characters, can be programmed to behave as a real person or a fictional entity. With this feature, users can make phone calls over the app and have conversations that simulate a real telephonic conversation. The artificial intelligence (AI) platform says that the feature will support multiple languages such as English, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, and more. Notably, Arc Search released a similar feature last month.

Character.AI Releases Character Calls Feature

In a blog post, the AI firm announced that the Character Calls feature will be available to all users for free. However, the feature is currently only available on the app, and users will not find it on the website at present. In March, the company introduced a Character Voice feature, which was a one-way communication with the characters. With this, users would text the AI, and it would respond back verbally. This was done using the AI model’s text-to-speech (TTS) capabilities.

Now, with Character Calls, users can initiate a two-way verbal communication. This would allow users to have a hands-free experience of chatting with an AI character.

Placing calls on Character.AI

With the new interface, users will see a call screen interface when starting a voice conversation with a chatbot. The screen comes with a mute button and an end call option. The company says the Character Calls feature will offer a lower latency to generate faster responses. Users will also be able to choose from different voices, pitches, accents, and personalities.

Character.AI said that the chatbots will support multiple languages such as English, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese. There will also be an option to seamlessly switch between voice and text calls. The chatbot will keep the context of the conversation even after switching.

After the call is ended, users will be able to see a full transcript of the call which is stored within the chat interface to serve as an easy reference point for the next conversation. Character.AI also stated that the feature will also be introduced on the web in the future.