Character.AI Reinvents Reading with Its Immersive Books Mode

Character.AI, a platform that has recently faced controversies and legal issues regarding its chatbots' interactions with users, particularly teenagers, is adopting a more cautious approach with the launch of its new Books mode. This mode aims to transform reading into a more structured role-playing experience, broadening perceptions of what role-playing with AI can be. The goal is to move away from concerns related to romance with minors, encouragement of violence, and promotion of self-harm.

In a blog post, Character.AI announced that the Books mode will launch with a catalog of over 20 classic titles from the public domain, sourced from Project Gutenberg. This catalog includes iconic works such as Alice in Wonderland, Pride and Prejudice, Dracula, Frankenstein, Romeo and Juliet, and The Great Gatsby. The company stated, “Each book allows you to choose who you want to be,” thus giving users the opportunity to immerse themselves in the narrative by embodying an existing character or creating one of their own personas on Character.AI.

The Books mode offers several ways to play through each story. The “book arc mode,” which is the purist mode, follows the original narration, plot points, and stakes while integrating the user into the story. In parallel, a more freeform mode, called “off-script mode,” allows users to interact with the world and characters in a more casual manner, providing a more flexible experience.

Character.AI also announced that a more guided experience, named TapTale, will soon be available. This feature will offer pre-written prompts that users can choose to advance the story, in addition to free input. This will allow users to have a more structured narrative experience while maintaining some freedom of interaction.

For those who wish to go even further, the Books mode will also enable users to completely rework the premise of a book through what Character.AI calls alternate universe remixes. For example, users could imagine Alice in Wonderland as a romantic comedy in space, or The Wizard of Oz with Toto in charge. These alternate universes can be shared with the community, allowing users to explore and discover others' creations.

This new feature is accessible to everyone via the Character.AI mobile app or its web-based prototype hub, Labs. Even free users can try it out, although the company has specified that they will only be entitled to a “limited number of free turns.” However, it is still unclear whether minors will be able to use the more guided features of the Books mode. Character.AI, facing lawsuits accusing it of harming teenagers' mental health, had already closed open chat features for minors last year and introduced more structured experiences called Stories.