Not as of October 23, 2026. Character.AI is still online while a bankruptcy court runs a sale of its owner's assets. Character Technologies, Inc. filed for Chapter 11 on October 12, 2026, and says the platform will be wound down only if the sale produces no bid that keeps it running. Under the proposed schedule, bids are due November 20, the auction is November 23 and the sale hearing is November 24. If there are characters there you would hate to lose, Prelulu can import them from a public Character.AI link today, and then you can video call them.
What the court record says, date by date
| Date | What happened or is scheduled | Source |
|---|---|---|
| September 18, 2026 | Character.AI signs agreements with Disney: Disney hires most of the staff, including the chief executive at the time, and pays $7.5 million of a $20 million price up front | Sale motion, Doc 15, paragraphs 13 to 15 |
| October 12, 2026 | Character Technologies, Inc. files a voluntary Chapter 11 petition in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, case 26-11603 | Petition, Doc 1; Character.AI's notice |
| October 13, 2026 | The company asks the court to approve sale rules with Disney as the opening (stalking-horse) bidder | Sale motion, Doc 15 |
| October 14, 2026 | State attorneys general file a notice asking that any sale protect young users and their data | California Attorney General, October 15 |
| October 30, 2026, 10:00 a.m. ET | Court hearing on the sale rules. Every date below is proposed until the court approves them | Case website |
| November 13, 2026 | Deadline to object to the sale (proposed) | Doc 15, page 32 |
| November 20, 2026, 5:00 p.m. ET | Deadline for bids (proposed) | Doc 15, page 26 |
| November 23, 2026, 10:00 a.m. ET | Auction, if qualifying rival bids arrive (proposed) | Doc 15, page 27 |
| November 24, 2026 | Sale hearing, subject to the court's calendar (proposed) | Doc 15, page 30 |
| December 17, 2026 | Latest closing date under Disney's agreement | Doc 15, page 10 |
The case is In re Character Technologies, Inc., No. 26-11603 (BLS), before Judge Brendan Linehan Shannon. Filings are public on the case website run by the court-appointed claims agent, Stretto. We read the petition, the sale motion and the sworn declaration of the current chief executive, Colin M. Adams, ourselves on October 23, 2026; anything else on this page is attributed to the outlet that reported it. Adams, a senior managing director at Areté Partners, the company's proposed financial adviser, is not the former chief executive Disney hired.
What Disney is buying, and what it is not
Disney Worldwide Services, Inc. agreed to pay $20 million for a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive license to some of Character.AI's intellectual property and technology, plus certain legal claims (Doc 15, paragraph 16). Its offer is the floor: other bidders can beat it at the auction. The license excludes the Character.AI app and website, the brand and domains, user data, what users typed, what the characters wrote back, training data and the finished chat models (Doc 15, exhibit 2, section 3.2). So the Disney deal does not move your chats or your characters anywhere.
The people moved first. Under the September agreements, Disney offered jobs to about 65 employees, including the chief executive at the time, with estimated pay of about $60 million a year plus a $30 million retention pool, about $180 million over three years (Doc 15, exhibit 2, page 118). The filing says the vast majority of the employees offered roles accepted them. TechCrunch reported on October 18, 2026 that former Character.AI chief executive Karandeep Anand had been named Disney's first chief technology officer. A year earlier, Disney had sent Character.AI a cease-and-desist letter over its characters, which Character.AI then removed (CNBC, September 30, 2025).
Everything else, the app, the brand and the user data, goes to whoever wins it, if anyone does. At the first hearing on October 14, Character.AI's lawyer said no buyer had yet made an offer for the company's user data or its chatbot business (Reuters, via Insurance Journal, October 15, 2026).
What happens to your characters and chats
For now, nothing changes. Character.AI says the platform "remains up and running", subscriptions remain active, billing is unchanged, and it will tell subscribers in advance if paid features change (Character.AI, October 12, 2026). Your data stays under its current privacy policy.
After the sale there are two paths. If a buyer keeps the platform running, accounts and chats would go with that business on terms the court approves, and a coalition of state attorneys general has asked that privacy and child-safety protections bind any buyer (California Attorney General, October 15, 2026). If no bid keeps it running, the company says the platform will be wound down, and Adams's declaration names a chapter 11 plan of liquidation as the next step (Doc 18, paragraphs 49 and 50). No filing sets a date for either path, and none says what would happen to chats in a wind-down.
Either way, the copy you control is the one you make yourself. There are two ways to keep a character, and the fast one depends on Character.AI still being online.
Bring your character to Prelulu, then call them
- Import from a public link, in minutes. On the web, open Character.AI import and paste a character.ai character or chat link. Prelulu loads the name, greeting, title, description and any visible definition without rewriting them, keeps the original portrait, and shows you everything before you save. This works only while character.ai still serves the page, so do it before the auction, not after.
- Then call them. A character imported from a public link goes through normal character creation, which prepares a voice and a video avatar. Once its video avatar is ready, start a video call: they answer you face to face, in their own voice, and you can cut in mid-sentence. Your camera stays off unless you turn it on.
- Bring one conversation from your account export, which takes longer. Request your data export in Character.AI's settings. KQED reported, citing Character.AI's help center, that exports can take three to four weeks and that the download link expires after seven days. Open the ZIP in the same importer: it is read on your device, and you choose one conversation to continue in text chat. A character created from the export has text chat only, with no voice or calls, and your other conversations stay on your device.
What does not come across: definitions a creator kept hidden, attachments and voice settings. Prelulu is not affiliated with Character.AI, and the export reader has been tested on export-shaped sample files, not yet on a real official archive. The step-by-step import guide walks through both paths.
Bring your character over while the link still works
Paste a public Character.AI link, check what came across, and save. Once its video avatar is ready, you can call your character.
Keep talking tonight on Prelulu
Prelulu is an AI character app on iPhone, Android and the web. You can text characters with a free daily message allowance, and when a conversation deserves more, switch to a live video call or a voice call. On a video call the character answers you face to face, in their own voice, with your Pinned memory available in both chat and calls. Calls use credits; signup welcome credits fund a short first call, and current plans are public.
Other places to go
A short list, from each app's own website or help pages as we read them on October 20, 2026. Our Character AI alternatives comparison covers eight apps in more detail.
- Prelulu: text with a free daily allowance, plus live video and voice calls, and an importer for public Character.AI links.
- Kindroid: one companion with memory; its docs describe live avatar video calls for subscribers.
- Nomi: a memory-focused companion with voice calls, free to start.
- Janitor AI: a large community library of bots for text roleplay.
- Talkie and PolyBuzz: big character libraries to text, free with optional memberships, both on Google Play. On October 23, 2026, Talkie Lab was listed on the US App Store; the older Talkie app id 6737908994 was not. PolyBuzz's iPhone app was not available in the US, UK, Canada or Australia: Apple's lookup returned no app and its App Store page returned 404.
Keep your characters, and finally see them
Import from a public Character.AI link on the web, review what comes across, and save. When its video avatar is ready, call them face to face. Hidden definitions are not imported, and a character created from the account export has text chat only.