Character.ai enters the microdrama arena with its own productions, but with a twist; plus, ‘Slow-cial’ app Roost forces you to slow down to the speed of a carrier pigeon
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What is the micro‑drama trend and why is Character.ai entering it?
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Olen Shannon Maldonado, käsitehtyjä artisaanituotteita myyvän JAWI-lahjakaupan perustaja. Valitsin Shopify, koska alustoja testatessani totesin sen ehdottomasti yhdeksi helppokäyttöisimmistä alustoista. Minulla oli tärkeää pohtia kehittymistämme tulevaisuudessa. Kaikki myyntiin tarvittavat työkalut, kuten varaston suunnittelu, ovat kätevästi Dashboardissa. Aloita ilmainen kokeilu shopify.com-sivustolla.
Microdramas are such a rage these days that nearly every kind of company in the attention economy space, be they dedicated micro drama apps, social media giants like TikTok and Instagram, or streaming services, is building a product to tap the opportunity. Character.ai, which lets people chat with customized AI avatars, is also tapping this budding market by producing its own microdramas using AI characters. But there is an interesting twist that takes advantage of the company's core product. Users older than 18 can chat with these shows characters, ask them questions, and even role-play different storylines. The startup is launching three micro dramas to start with: a romance series dubbed Last Summer, a horror show titled The Nighttime Game, and a Hunger Games-like survival micro drama called Edenfall.
Character.ai says these dramas were created using AI production tools, and in the long term, it aims to help users create their own characters and series.
How is Character.ai using its AI avatars to create and role‑play new series?
A company spokesperson told TechCrunch, starting with a studio-led model, C.ai Series lets our production team develop the format, refine the workflow, and understand what audiences want from character-native micro drama entertainment. Over time, the goal is to turn those learnings and workflows into creator tools, enabling users to make their own series from original characters and share them with a global audience. This is the latest in a slew of recent features from the startup following its shift toward entertainment focused features last year. In April, it teased a tool called Lorebook that users can employ to create world building information that characters can reference, and launched another feature called Books that lets users insert themselves into select classic literature titles or roleplay as characters from them.
The company said on Thursday that it is also testing a feature dubbed C dot AIFM. That will let users put together audio series. And another that lets you create fiction called C.ai Reads. The audio series feature is currently available to select users under its experimental C.ai Labs program, which the company says professional writers are using to create serialized audio dramas.
Now
What new tools (Lorebook, Books, C.ai FM, C.ai Reads) is Character.ai rolling out for creators?
There's certainly an audience for this form of entertainment. Users spent more than nine hundred fifty minutes on character. AI each month in the first half of this year, according to Censor Tower. Well, somewhere above the Great Plains, a virtual woodpecker is on its way to Alaska to deliver a message to an anonymous pen pal. At the same time, a zebra finch named Tucker soars into Manhattan to send a friend a doodle. Now these messages take hours or even days to send, depending on how far the bird has to fly, as that's the point of Roost. The viral social app that's making carrier pigeons cool again. A roost arrives at a time when people crave the opportunity to slow down and disconnect from the apps that constantly demand their attention.
and are embracing technology that adds some friction. Roost creator Logan Mendelson told TechCrunch, everything on a phone is instantaneous these days.
How does Roost make messaging as slow as a carrier pigeon and why does that appeal to users?
Every single thing you do, it's like you're always getting some notification or something. Roost is kind of a break from the instant. It's resonating with people in a way where they don't feel pressure all the time to have to do something. So when you sign up for Roost, you choose four birds to add to your rookery, which allows you to send messages to your friends on the app. Each bird moves at the speed that it travels in real life. So a falcon will deliver a message much faster than a hummingbird.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the micro‑drama trend and why is Character.ai entering it?
0:02–1:48
2
How is Character.ai using its AI avatars to create and role‑play new series?
1:48–3:08
3
What new tools (Lorebook, Books, C.ai FM, C.ai Reads) is Character.ai rolling out for creators?
3:08–4:12
4
How does Roost make messaging as slow as a carrier pigeon and why does that appeal to users?
4:12–5:36
5
What sparked Roost’s rapid growth to 300 K users and how does the app keep conversation intentional?
5:36–6:59
6
How is Roost handling trust, safety, AI‑generated art complaints, and its limited monetization model?
6:59–9:02
Speakers
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