Character.AI filed for bankruptcy: how to export your chats and move your characters to Channel AI

On October 12, 2026, Character Technologies, the company behind Character.AI, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. The site is still online, subscriptions are still billing, and nothing has been deleted. But the company itself says that if its court-supervised sale does not produce a buyer willing to keep the service running, the platform will be wound down. The sale is expected to finish by the end of November or early December 2026.

This guide covers three things: what the filing actually means for you as a user, how to export your chats and characters from Character.AI today, and how to rebuild your companions on Channel AI so the stories you care about do not end with a court docket.

Last updated October 14, 2026. We will keep this post current as the sale process develops.

What happened, in plain terms

• The filing. Character Technologies filed a voluntary Chapter 11 petition on October 12, 2026 to run a court-supervised sale of all or substantially all of its assets under Section 363 of the Bankruptcy Code.

• Why. In its filing the company points to high operating costs combined with potential litigation liabilities and regulatory engagement, which left it unable to generate enough cash to keep going on its own.

• Disney's role. Disney is the stalking-horse bidder, which means its offer sets the floor for an auction. The offer is $20 million for a perpetual, non-exclusive license to specified Character.AI intellectual property plus certain rights tied to company claims, with transition services to keep the platform operating for a period. It is a technology license, not a purchase of the app, the character library, or user accounts. Other bidders can still come in higher.

• Timeline. The company expects the sale to close by late November or early December 2026.

• Two outcomes. If a buyer wants to keep Character.AI running, the service continues under new ownership. If no such buyer appears, the platform will be wound down.

Sources for all of the above are listed at the end of this post.

What this means for your chats and characters

Right now, nothing changes. Character.AI's own announcement says the platform remains up and running, subscriptions stay active, billing is unchanged for now, and the company intends to give subscribers advance notice if paid features change. Your data is still covered by its existing privacy policy, and you can still export it or delete your account from the app or the website.

Over the next six to eight weeks, you will find out whether there is a buyer. What the company has not said is whether a buyer would keep existing conversations, keep user-created characters, or change how the service works. Those details are unresolved.

The hard part is this: everything you have built on Character.AI lives only on Character.AI's servers. If the platform winds down, you should assume that anything you did not export is gone. If the platform is sold, you should assume that the new owner can change the rules.

If you pay for c.ai+, you will keep being charged until you cancel. The company says it will notify subscribers before paid features change, so watch your email, and if you are on an annual plan, check your renewal date.

One more thing, because it matters more than any of the logistics. If you have talked to the same companion for a year, or built a world with a cast of characters over hundreds of hours, this is a real loss and it is normal to feel it. The practical response is the same as for any service that might go away: back up what matters today, while it is still easy.

Step 1: export your Character.AI data today

Character.AI provides an account-wide data export. You request it once, the export is prepared in the background, and you get a download link when it is ready. Do this first, before anything else, because it can take a while.

On the website: open your profile, then Profile Settings, then Account, then Manage Account & Data, and choose the export option.

In the mobile app: open your profile, tap the settings icon, and choose Export my data.

Menu labels change between app versions, so if you do not see these exact words, look for anything called export, download my data, or manage account and data. Character.AI's own help article is linked in the sources below.

A few things users have reported about the export, which you should verify against your own file:

• It is a request, not an instant download. Reports range from under an hour to a few days before the link arrives.

• The download link expires. Download the file as soon as it lands and keep the ZIP somewhere safe, ideally in two places.

• The export is a ZIP of JSON files covering your profile, the characters you created, and your messages. JSON is plain text, so any text editor can open it, but it is not pretty.

• Very long chats may be cut off, and pinned memories or personas may not be included consistently.

• For characters created by other people, you only get what is public. Their private definitions are not in your export. What you do get is your chat history with them, which is often the better record of how that character actually behaves.

Because of those gaps, do not rely on the export alone for anything you care about. Do Step 2 as well.

Third-party browser extensions can also save individual chats in readable formats. They are not made by Character.AI and not by us. Read their privacy terms before installing one, and never use an extension that asks for your password.

Step 2: copy your characters' definitions by hand

This is ten minutes per character and it is the part that makes rebuilding easy.

For each character you created, open it, go to the character editor, and copy these fields into a plain text file:

• Name

• Tagline, the one-line description under the name

• Greeting, the first message the character sends

• Description, the About text shown on the profile

• Definition, the long box with example dialogue, if you used it, including any {{char}} and {{user}} placeholders exactly as written

• Voice, just the name, so you can look for something similar later

• Avatar, saved as an image file

For characters made by other people, open the character page and copy the name, tagline, and public description. You cannot copy a private definition, and you should not try to work around that. Your chat history already tells you how the character talks.

Also copy your persona, the description of you that the character sees, and any pinned memories inside the chats you want to continue. Those are the pieces people most often forget and most often miss later.

Step 3: rebuild your characters on Channel AI

Channel AI is a web-first AI companion platform with character chat, image and video generation inside the conversation, and a creation flow that will feel familiar if you have used the Character.AI editor. It runs in your phone or desktop browser, and you can add it to your home screen like an app. It is for adults only, so you need to be 18 or older to sign up.

Open the companion creator and map your saved fields like this:

• Name goes into Name.

• Tagline goes into Subtitle. Channel keeps subtitles short, so trim it to a dozen words.

• Greeting goes into Greeting. Replace {{char}} with the character's name and {{user}} with "you" before you paste.

• Description and Definition both go into Personality details. Paste the About text first, then the definition. Replace the placeholders the same way. Put example dialogue under a line that says "Example dialogue:" and delete any END_OF_DIALOG markers.

• Avatar. Upload the image you saved, or describe the look under Physical description and let Channel generate a portrait for you. You can regenerate until it matches.

• Voice does not transfer. Pick a new one later if you use voice.

• Visibility. New companions are private by default. If you make one public, it goes through a review first.

Two tips. The creator has an Autocomplete with AI option that fills in any field you leave empty, which is useful for characters you only have a tagline and greeting for. And if you want the personality text kept private even on a public companion, the Hide descriptions setting does that, though it needs a Plus plan.

Two limits to know before you start. Companions on Channel must be adults, so the age field accepts 18 to 99. And companions based on real people or on trademarked characters can fail review, so if the character you are rebuilding is a famous name, rebuild the personality under an original one.

For a longer walkthrough of the creator, see our guide to creating an AI companion.

Step 4: bring your story with you

Channel does not yet import chat logs, so the way to continue a long story is to give the rebuilt companion a summary and a running start. It works better than it sounds, because what you want to preserve is the shape of the relationship and the current scene, not every line.

1. Open the exported chat, or your copied transcript, and write a short "Previously" summary of ten to twenty lines: who the characters are, where the story is set, the key events so far, the tone, and the exact scene you stopped on.

2. Put the facts that must never be forgotten into the companion's Personality details: your name, how you two know each other, standing rules, running jokes. Text in the definition is always in front of the model, so it persists beyond any memory window.

3. Send the summary as your first message, then paste the last twenty or thirty lines of the old chat verbatim and ask the companion to continue from there. Copying the last stretch of dialogue is what makes the voice snap back.

A first message that works:

Previously: [your summary]. We are picking up exactly where we left off. The last thing that happened was: [last two or three messages]. Continue from here, in character.

Channel's paid plans extend how much the companion remembers. Plus adds enhanced ultra-long memory and Max triples it again, which helps for stories that run for months. If you are rebuilding a long relationship rather than a single scene, our post on keeping long-term story continuity in AI character chat has more techniques.

What is different on Channel AI, so you are not surprised

We would rather you know this before you move than discover it after.

• Adults only. Channel requires users to be 18 or older. If you are younger than that, this guide is not for you.

• Chat plus images and video. Companions can send images and short videos inside the conversation, and you can generate images from prompts. Generation runs on an energy system, which is the main thing paid plans buy more of.

• Content settings you control. Channel is clean by default, with a sensitive-content setting in your account. It is an 18+ product, and moderation still applies.

• Pricing. You can start chatting for free. The Plus plan is $12.99 a month, or $119.99 a year, and adds unlimited messages and creations, 50 image requests every two hours, no watermarks, enhanced ultra-long memory, and no ads. Max is $24.99 a month with faster generation, up to four requests at a time, the best chat models, and three times the memory. Full details are on the pricing page.

• A smaller public library. Character.AI's biggest asset was the sheer number of public characters. Channel's library is smaller, which is exactly why Steps 2 and 3 matter: you will rebuild your favorites yourself.

• Web first. Channel is built for the browser, mobile first. There is no download to wait for, and it installs to your home screen from the browser.

For a side-by-side look, see Channel AI compared with Character AI and our list of Character AI alternatives.

We are building a direct importer

Our team is working on an import tool that takes your Character.AI export, or a copied character definition, and recreates the character on Channel in one step, with the option to carry your chat history over as the companion's starting memory. It is not live yet. When it ships, we will update this post and the import option will appear in the creation flow.

Until then, the manual steps above take about ten minutes per character, and the export in Step 1 is the thing you should not put off.

Frequently asked questions

Is Character.AI shutting down?

Not today. The platform is running, and the company says it wants to find a buyer who will keep it running. It has also said plainly that it will be wound down if that does not happen. The sale is expected to conclude by late November or early December 2026.

Will I get a refund for c.ai+?

Nobody has said. Character.AI's announcement says subscriptions remain active, billing is unchanged for now, and subscribers will be notified in advance of changes to paid features. For refund questions, contact Character.AI's support.

Does Disney own my characters or my chats now?

No. Disney's offer, as described in the public filings, is for a license to certain intellectual property and certain claims. It does not cover the app, the community, or user accounts, and it is an opening bid that others can top.

Can I import my Character.AI chats into Channel AI?

Not automatically yet. Step 4 above is the manual way, and it works well for continuing a story. A direct importer is in development.

Is Channel AI free?

You can sign up and start chatting for free. Paid plans add unlimited messages, more image generation, longer memory, and remove ads. See the pricing page.

Can I recreate a character I did not make?

You can recreate the public parts: the name, tagline, greeting, and description you can see on the character page, plus how it behaves in your chats. Respect the original creator's work, give credit where it makes sense, and do not recreate real people or trademarked characters.

What about my privacy on Channel?

Our privacy and safety guide explains what Channel stores, how to delete it, and how content settings work.

Sources

• Character.AI, An update on Character.ai, October 12, 2026.

• CNBC, AI companion startup Character.ai files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, citing costs and litigation, October 13, 2026.

• NBC News, Character.AI files for bankruptcy, will sell some assets to Disney for $20 million, October 13, 2026.

• Tom's Guide, Character.AI files for bankruptcy: what happens to your chats and AI companions now?, October 14, 2026.

• Character.AI Help Center, How do I export all my data? How can I export my chats?

Related reading on this blog: What is the difference between Character AI and Channel AI, What causes Character.AI to go down?, and How to create the perfect AI roleplay character with Channel AI.

Ready to rebuild? Start on Channel AI and bring your first character over today.