Peter Csathy recently sat down with Character.AI CEO Karan Anand. While their conversation focused on the notorious chatbot pioneer’s surprising pivot to entertainment and its aggressive courtship of Hollywood IP, it sparked a related new phenomenon — we have now entered the era of the “Always On” celebrity.

In this episode -- based on Peter's recent article of the same name -- Peter's hosts explore the issues raised by Peter's article (and the opportunities it explores).

Imagine living — and even deceased — artists, athletes, and performers completely freed from the physical constraints of time, travel, and human exhaustion. Always available to “work,” and always collecting the scaling revenues that flow from it.

This new “Always On” celebrity opportunity dovetails perfectly with the related concept Peter and Anand previously discussed — “Living IP.” For the last century, Hollywood’s monetization model has essentially relied on a predictable, rigid formula — develop IP, control its distribution window, and charge a passive audience a fee to watch it. It’s a top-down experience controlled by the studio.

The evolution of interactive AI completely flips this script, giving the audience agency. Instead of waiting two years for the next movie featuring their favorite superhero character — or for their favorite musician’s next album — fans can now engage in ongoing, continuous, interactive, two-way experiences with that IP (characters, music).

It's a fascinating podcast, hosted by Google NotebookLM's co-hosts. Peter listened to the entirety of the episode and approves its content.

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In this episode, I feature my exclusive interview with Karan Anand, CEO of Character.AI — the controversial “AI companion chatbot” company that has been at the center of the AI storm (including tragic stories of teens who commit suicide after having established deep relationships with their chatbots).

Likely surprising to many of you (it was to me), Character.AI is now pivoting to be first and foremost an AI entertainment company — courting major studios and creators alike to build and monetize fandom. This is Anand’s elevator pitch: “Think if Roblox, TikTok, and Wattpad had a baby ... this is what Character.AI is rapidly evolving into.”

But can Character.AI successfully make this pivot? And how credible and powerful is its new pitch, including on the critical issues of teen safety? Can the company gain the trust of major studios, IP owners and celebs/influencers from whom they'd like to license content for fandom?

I ask Anand the hard questions. And to his credit, he doesn’t shy away from any of them.

It’s an important, fascinating, and candid conversation — and Peter and Karan covered a lot of ground in 60 minutes, every minute of which is newsworthy.

NOTE: After our interview, Character.AI asked me to include its official response to the new litigation filed by the state of Pennsylvania. Here it is.

“We do not comment on pending litigation. Our highest priority is the safety and well-being of our users.

The user-created Characters on our site are fictional and intended for entertainment and roleplaying. We have taken robust steps to make that clear, including prominent disclaimers in every chat to remind users that a Character is not a real person and that everything a Character says should be treated as fiction. Also, we add robust disclaimers making it clear that users should not rely on Characters for any type of professional advice.

Character.ai prioritizes responsible product development and has robust internal reviews and red-teaming processes in place to assess relevant features.”

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Check out Peter and his firm Creative Media
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This week I feature last week’s exclusive Digital Hollywood expert panel discussion about AI and copyright — the latest legal and business updates.

I moderated this great panel, which featured AI expert lawyers Lisa Oratz of Perkins Coie, Anthony Glukhov of the RAMO firm, and Jonathan Handel of Feig, Finkel — together with AI and marketing expert Albert Thompson of Walton Isaacson.

We covered a lot of ground in 50 minutes — and it’s worth listening to all of it. You’ll learn a lot, no matter what role you play in the worlds of media, entertainment, AI and tech.

Sign up for the companion "the brAIn" newsletter via this link.
Check out Peter and his firm Creative Media
Check out Peter's LinkedIn bio here.
And send feedback to bizdev@creativemedia.biz.