Chai AI Review 2026: Huge Bot Library, Tighter Paywall, Off the App Store

If you last used Chai a year ago, you're coming back to a different app. Free use has been cut back region by region, the iPhone app has gone from the App Store, and the privacy policy was updated on 5 November.

Android is still live. Google Play showed the app updated on 7 November, with more than 10 million downloads and a 2.8-star average.

Chai's 2026 Timeline

• January to February: the founder posted that free access was being restricted in a list of countries, according to coverage of those posts.
• March: Australia's eSafety Commissioner published findings on Chai and three other companion apps. More on that in the safety section.
• April: third-party reports say message limits spread to more regions. Coverage of a February announcement had said the US, Europe, Canada and Japan would keep free access.
• July: Chai said it had passed $100 million in annualized revenue.
• 1 October: the company put that run-rate at $120 million, a figure it labels company-reported and unaudited.
• Around 22 October: the iPhone app became unavailable to download. Coverage of a post by the founder says the team is working on the Apple app and that existing installs keep working.
• 5 November: Chai published an updated privacy policy.

We checked the App Store ourselves on 13 November. Chai's listing page couldn't be found in either the US or UK store, and we couldn't find an announced return date.

Chai isn't one companion you get to know over months. It works more like a social feed: you scroll characters other people made, tap one and start talking, or build your own and share it.

The tiles on the website set the tone. Mafia husbands, cold roommates, a strict mentor, a dragon hunter, plus the anime, RPG, horror and "comfort" characters the FAQ promises.

That makes it a cousin of Character.AI rather than of companion apps like Kindroid, which are built around one long-running relationship. Chai trades one deep relationship for range.

Behind it sits Chai Research Corp., which dates its founding to January 2021. Wikipedia says the prototype started in Cambridge, England, before the move to Palo Alto in 2022.

William Beauchamp is founder and CEO, and the company says it employs 15 to 20 people. It trains its own models, which the FAQ says run on more than 5,000 GPUs.

Chai says it has raised $55 million, naming CoreWeave and AMD Ventures among its backers. It's a small team running a very large app.

Company Claims vs Independent Ratings

The outside signal isn't kind. On top of Google Play's 2.8, Chai's Trustpilot page scored 2.0 from 16 reviews, 88% of them one-star, and nobody from the company has claimed it.

The newest Trustpilot posts, all from early November, complain about Pieces, removed personas and prices. They're unverified, but they line up with this year's changes.

This is where people get confused. There are three ways into Chai, and they don't all share one account.

Where You Can Use Chai

The FAQ is blunt: Web Pro and the app are "separate platforms with no data sharing between the two." Treat them as two products, because your app chats won't appear in Web Pro.

Chai also claims each Web Pro request gets about 8x the compute of an average app user's. That's its case for the price, and it isn't something we measured.

Then there's app.chai-ai.com, a bare sign-in screen with Google, Facebook, Apple and email buttons. Its own page description reads "Your Chai characters, chats and subscription, now on the web", and coverage of the founder's posts says it works in Safari.

That matters on iPhone. Reports say an existing install keeps working, but if you don't have the app, the browser is now the only way in.

One more iPhone point. A plan bought inside the iOS app is billed by Apple, and Chai hasn't said whether renewals pause while the app is off the store, so check it in your Apple subscriptions.

Chai's FAQ answers the question with "Yes — Chai AI is free to start." Its safety center adds the catch: "In some regions, use of the service requires a paid subscription."

One regulator has noticed the shift. In its March 2026 report, Australia's eSafety Commissioner said Chai had since restricted free chat with its AI companions and now requires a subscription.

How Free Use Works Now

• Ads: the privacy policy says Chai shows ads "if you have a free subscription", and Google Play lists the app as containing ads.
• Pieces: user reports and coverage of the founder's posts say app messages are paid for with Pieces, an in-app currency, and that stronger AI models cost more of them.
• Limits: a September 2026 Google Play reviewer described a cap of 70 messages every 3 hours being replaced by Pieces. That's one person's account, and Chai doesn't publish a free quota.
• Location: whether you get free chat at all depends on where you live.

So treat free Chai as a test drive, not a plan to rely on. If you want character chat without paying, Janitor AI and the free tier in our Character.AI review hold up better today.

Chai Web Pro is one product sold three ways. The 24-hour trial rolls into the annual plan, the annual plan costs $159.99, and the weekly plan costs $9.99, shown as 60% off a $24.99 list price.

Chai AI Prices at a Glance

Every Pro card lists the same perks: the full character library, the "most advanced" chat model, no ads and faster replies. Only the billing changes.

Which Plan Makes Sense

• Just curious: take the 24-hour trial and set a reminder, because it turns into a $159.99 annual charge.
• Staying more than about four months: the annual price equals roughly 16 weeks of the weekly plan, so anything longer is cheaper on annual.
• Weekly for a whole year: that route costs $519.48, over three times the annual price.
• Heavy use: MAX sits on top of Pro, so a year of Pro plus MAX Monthly runs $1,239.99.

Spot the contradiction before you pay. The FAQ says Pro unlocks "endless conversations", yet MAX is sold as removing "all rate limits" or doubling them, so Pro has a limit Chai doesn't publish.

Watch the media costs too. Leave image auto-generation off unless you want it, and know that the web terms also describe yearly packages: 50 image generations a week that don't roll over, and 150 videos granted once.

The Android app sells its own in-app purchases through Google Play. We couldn't see those prices without an account, so they aren't listed here.

Chai's web terms say every paid plan and add-on renews automatically, and each add-on is its own subscription with its own billing date. Check each one separately when you cancel.

How to Cancel on Each Platform

• Chai Web Pro: open your profile and choose "cancel plan". The terms say you can do it online without contacting anyone, and access lasts until the paid period ends.
• Android app: cancel in the Google Play Store under Payments & subscriptions. Uninstalling the app doesn't stop billing.
• iPhone app: open Settings, tap your name, then Subscriptions. Apple handles the billing, not Chai.

Refunds are the weak spot. Except where the law requires one, the web terms call payments non-refundable, with no credit for partial periods or unused features.

For app purchases, refund requests go to Google or Apple. The terms also promise 7 to 30 days' notice before a price rise, which leaves time to cancel first.

It depends what you mean by safe. Chai is a legitimate company with a real address and published policies, but its safety record goes back to 2023 and is worth reading before you sign up.

Chai's Safety Record, by Date

• March 2023: Belgian newspaper La Libre reported that a man died by suicide after six weeks of conversations with "Eliza", a Chai chatbot, based on his widow's account and chat logs she shared. Co-founder William Beauchamp told Vice the company had added a crisis-intervention feature (Euronews coverage).
• 2 April 2025: US Senators Alex Padilla and Peter Welch wrote to Chai Research, Character.AI and Replika's maker, asking how they protect young users.
• 25 August 2025: a bipartisan group of 44 state attorneys general warned AI companies, Chai among them, over harm to children.
• October 2025: Australia's eSafety Commissioner sent legal transparency notices to Chai and three other companion apps.
• March 2026: eSafety's report said Chai hadn't pointed users to support services when self-harm was detected in their prompts, and didn't check outputs across all relevant models. Like Nomi, it also didn't warn users that prompting for child sexual abuse material is a crime or report such material to authorities, and none of the four apps had robust age checks at the time.

The two US items are letters, questions from the senators and a warning from the attorneys general, not findings of wrongdoing. The eSafety report is the one with specific findings about Chai.

What Chai Says It Does Now

• Age checks through Persona, using selfie age estimation or a government photo ID
• "Every user message is scanned in real time for self-harm content", with a crisis notice that points to support lines
• Models designed to refuse sexually explicit content, self-harm content and anything that sexualizes minors
• Safety Filters that hide mature search results and explicit messages, or block specific characters
• Anonymous reporting of any character or message
• Reports to the US National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and competent authorities "where the law requires it", per the November privacy policy

Those descriptions come from Chai's own safety center and privacy policy, and we haven't tested how well any of it works. They do read like direct answers to what regulators raised, which is something.

If you're going through a hard time, please talk to a person rather than a chatbot. findahelpline.com lists free, confidential crisis lines by country.

Not in the way most FetishAura readers mean it. Chai's app license allows "adult-oriented content, including mature themes and fictionalized violence", as long as it stays fictional.

The same license bans "sexually explicit images or videos of any kind", and the safety center says the models are built to refuse explicit content. Suggestive roleplay may slip through, but explicit chat is exactly what the system is designed to stop.

Google Play still lists "Sexual Themes" among its reasons for the Mature 17+ rating, so expect flirting and innuendo rather than a hard wall. If explicit roleplay is the whole point, apps like SpicyChat and CrushOn.AI are made for it.

For how the strict end of this market works, our look at Character.AI's NSFW filter is a useful comparison.

Chai's privacy policy was updated on 5 November 2026, and it's more candid than the FAQ. Read the two side by side and they don't quite agree.

What the Privacy Policy Allows

• Model training: chat data is used to "enhance and fine tune" Chai's AI models, safety models included, after personal identifiers are removed. The policy doesn't describe an opt-out setting for training. EU and UK users get a right to object by emailing Chai.
• Who can see it: "specifically authorized staff", plus providers for hosting, AI models, media generation, age checks, analytics, support and payments.
• Advertisers: if you installed the app from an ad, your usage patterns may go to ad partners to measure that campaign.
• Where it's stored: in the United States.
• How long: for the life of the account and up to five years after you delete it, longer for legal claims.

The FAQ, meanwhile, says Chai "does not share your personal data with any third parties." The policy's list of processors and ad partners says otherwise, and the policy is the binding document.

The Google Play data-safety panel points the same way. Chai declares that the app may share location and personal info with third parties, and that data is encrypted in transit.

Deleting Your Chai Account

1. Sign in and open the Profile section.
2. Go to Settings.
3. Press Delete Account.

Cancel any subscription first, since deleting the account won't stop a Google Play or Apple plan. And with that five-year clause, deletion closes the account without promising every copy of your chats is gone.

Keep real names, addresses and anything you'd hate to see quoted out of your chats. That's good practice on any AI app, and this policy makes it more pressing.

Here's how Chai lines up against the apps people most often weigh it against. Ratings and prices come from our own published reviews of each.

Chai AI Compared With Four Rivals

Chai's real edge is the size of its library, if you take its 25 million count at face value. On price, free access, platform reach and adult content, at least one rival beats it, which is why it ranks last in this table.

Chai Makes Sense If You

• Like hopping between lots of short, offbeat character chats rather than building one relationship
• Use Android, or are happy chatting in a browser
• Live somewhere free use still works, or are ready to pay yearly
• Don't need explicit content

Better Options for Other Needs

• One companion who remembers you: Kindroid or Nomi
• Adult roleplay and companions: our ranking of AI girlfriend apps
• A mainstream, free-first character app: these Character.AI alternatives or our Talkie AI alternatives
• A gentler companion experience: Replika, which we cover in its own review

This review is research-based. We've marked what came from Chai, what came from regulators and what came from users.

What We Did and Didn't Do

• Read on 13 November 2026: Chai's pricing page (Pro, MAX and Images tabs), FAQ, web terms, app license, privacy policy, safety center and company-facts page.
• Checked the same day: the Google Play listing, the App Store in the US and UK, and Trustpilot.
• Outside sources: Australia's eSafety Commissioner, a US Senate press release, a state attorney-general release and news coverage of the 2023 Belgian case. eSafety's own site timed out for us, so we read its March 2026 release on the Medianet newswire.
• Not done: creating an account, buying a plan, chatting with characters or generating images.

The screenshots show Chai's public pages and its Google Play listing. Because we didn't chat, the features and content scores lean on Chai's descriptions and user reports, as the score notes explain.

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