AI Chatbot Startup Character.AI Lays Off At Least 5% Of Its Staff: Report

Chatbot startup Character.AI laid off at least 5% of its staff, The Information reported on Thursday, citing a person briefed by company leaders.

The employees who were laid off mostly worked on marketing and recruiting for the startup, the report said.

"We are refocusing the company to ensure all roles align with our new direction to build personalized AI (artificial intelligence) products," a Character.AI spokesperson told Reuters.

"As a result, we have made a small reduction in our workforce," the spokesperson said, without giving the numbers of the laid off employees.

Earlier this month, Character.AI signed an agreement with Alphabet's Google that grants the search engine giant a non-exclusive license to the chatbot maker's large language model technology.

Character.AI will get more funding as part of the deal with Google, the startup had said in a blog, without disclosing the amount.

Character.AI previously raised $193 million in venture capital from investors including Andreessen Horowitz. It was in talks to raise hundreds from millions from Google, Reuters reported in November.

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