Best AI Companion Apps in 2026: Character.ai, Replika, Sesame and the Rest

Character.ai began removing open-ended chat for users under 18 on 24 November 2025, and that one decision split the companion-app market into products that admit teenagers and products that do not.

Most guides rank these apps by personality. Wrong first test. Three questions settle the choice faster: who is allowed in, what the app does with your conversations, and what it costs once the free tier runs thin.

This guide ranks four companion apps on those questions, using each vendor's own terms and privacy policy and the regulators who have started to examine the category. Every policy line was read on 6 November 2026. Hokai held no long chat sessions with any of them, so the verdicts rest on published rules, not on how each personality feels. Where a page says nothing, the guide says so. It covers safe-for-work use only. No adult apps appear here.

Hokai chart of the minimum age each vendor publishes, from their own terms and policies as read on 6 November 2026.

How to choose an AI companion: four tests

Take them in sequence. The first removes a whole product for some readers. The last decides how much of your own data you will hand over, which is the part people regret.

• Can you use it at your age? Replika and Pi are adults only. Character.ai bars teens from open chat. Sesame states no minimum age.
• What do you want it for? Stories, a daily chat, hands-free talk or calm advice.
• What leaves your phone? Chat text, voice recordings, a selfie for an age check, or all three.
• What do you pay? Free tiers now carry ads, caps or a waitlist. The sticker price is rarely the price of a good month.

Not sure which fits? Smart Match asks about your situation and suggests tools from the directory.

The pick for most adults who want a character to play with is Character.ai. For a single long-running companion, Replika. For hands-free talk, Sesame. Each is expanded below. Details follow.

Character.ai is the pick for role-play, and teens are out of open chat

The Character.ai home page promises "10M+ Characters", and that catalogue is the reason to pick it. You pick a character someone built, or make your own, and play out a scene: a detective, a dragon, a study partner, a rival from a story you invented last week. It suits story-driven chat better than a plain friend simulation. Fans of fiction will like it.

The age rules changed hard last year. On 29 October 2025, the company said it would remove open-ended chat for under-18 users no later than 25 November. It cut a teen's allowance to two hours a day first, then to one hour a day in the US, according to its 21 November update. Removal began on 24 November 2025 in the US, with other markets following.

To tell who is who, Character.ai says it built an age assurance model in-house and combines it with third-party tools including Persona. In its April 2026 product update the company added that age restrictions had reached more regions, that some features now have usage limits, and that free users see more ads. Teens keep non-chat features such as Feed, Imagine, Avatar FX and Streams. No chat, though.

On price, the free plan carries ads, which the vendor's own April post confirms. The $9.99 monthly c.ai+ plan and its $94.99 annual price come from Hokai's check on 3 November 2026, because the vendor's pricing page needs a sign-in to read. That plan removes ads and adds voice calls. Simple enough.

Data is the weak side. Read this part twice. The privacy policy effective 1 July 2026 lists chat, images and voice recordings among what it collects, and says it uses information to train its models. It also says public Characters and Voices are visible to others. The text read for this guide gives no fixed retention period. Deleting your account is available from your profile page.

Replika is the pick for one steady companion, with the strictest adult gate

Replika is built around a single companion that remembers you. The vendor's home page describes a rebuilt product and shows a counter reading 42,160,934 users worldwide on 6 November 2026. It is adults only. The privacy policy says so in one flat line.

That gate has a history. Italy's data regulator ordered the app blocked in February 2023. The European Data Protection Board's summary of the final decision, dated 10 April 2025, says the maker Luka Inc. had no age verification at registration or during use until 2 February 2023. It fined the company €5 million and noted that the age check then in place still had deficiencies.

Replika now says it verifies age by selfie or identity document through a provider, Incode Technologies. Where possible, the selfie is analyzed on your phone and never leaves it. The policy states the biometric scan is destroyed immediately and in all cases within 24 hours, and that only the result is kept.

Chat data gets more careful wording than most rivals. Replika says outside AI providers receive the minimum needed, and are barred from training their own models on it. It does say small, anonymized portions of messages train its own safety algorithms. Profile and memories are deleted within 60 days after you delete the account, and an account that never paid can be deleted after 12 months of silence.

Price is the gap. No figure appears until checkout. The app is free to download with in-app purchases, but Replika publishes no price list. Its terms say plans differ by platform, version and country, so the amount appears only at checkout.

Sesame is the pick for talking out loud, and it is more assistant than companion

Sesame is a voice-first app. Its 5 October 2026 getting-started post lists four assistants you can call or text: Maya, Miles, Simone and Charlie. It also says the assistants can work across Gmail and Google Calendar with your permission, and that smart glasses are coming in 2027.

That makes it a different product from the other three. Think assistant. Not pen pal. The companion is a conversation partner first and a worker second, which suits someone who wants to think out loud on a walk. Each assistant has its own app access, so you can give Maya your email and keep Charlie out of it.

Hokai's listing, checked on 3 November 2026, records the app as free in preview with no paid plan found. That is a preview, not a promise, so treat the price as open.

On data, read the policy before you sign in. It collects voice recordings and text transcripts. For logged-in users, it reserves the right to use content for any legitimate business purpose, including model training, unless you opt out in account settings. Visitors who use the website without an account have their content deleted automatically after 30 days.

On age, Sesame says it does not direct its services to children under 13. The terms require that you be of legal age to form a contract. Neither page states an 18 or over rule, which is the main reason a parent should look hard before handing it over.

Pi is the pick for calm advice, with the clearest terms on training

Pi, from Inflection AI, is the conversational assistant of the four, built for talk and questions more than character play. It asks for your name and phone number to register.

Its terms, last updated 22 December 2025, say the service is not intended for minors under 18. The acceptable use rules ban sexually explicit content. The same terms license your inputs and outputs to Inflection to train and improve models. The privacy policy, last updated 11 August 2026, softens that: you can opt out of model training in account settings.

Pi is candid about emotion. The policy says the company may use inputs to infer your emotional state or tone, and that you can opt out of using voice to infer emotions. Deleting is easy: type "!delete" in the chat or use the profile page. Pi says it generally keeps inputs at most 15 days after you delete, and it keeps outputs indefinitely for limited purposes.

The pages read state no price for Pi, so Hokai makes no pricing claim here.

The shortlist: one pick for each job

Four jobs, four picks. None wins on every axis, and the right one depends on who is holding the phone.

Memory is where the products differ most, and each vendor describes it differently. Character.ai's April 2026 update says a notification now appears in chat whenever a memory is recorded, so you can see what the system keeps. Replika says it keeps your profile, memories and diary for as long as the account exists. Sesame splits memory and app access per assistant. Pi lets you delete individual messages, which it says are removed from your history at once.

None of this picks a winner. It tells you what to check on day one. Open the memory or history screen, write down what it holds, and delete one item to see whether it really disappears. That ten-minute test tells you more than any rating.

Before you sign up: six checks

Work through these on the vendor's own pages. Each takes a minute or two.

1. Find the age rule in the terms, not the app store listing.
2. Search the privacy policy for the words "train" and "retain".
3. Check whether voice recordings or a selfie are stored, and for how long.
4. Look for an opt-out for model training in account settings.
5. Confirm how to delete your account, and what it keeps for finance or legal reasons.
6. Read the price on the checkout screen, not the home page.

Where language and social practice fit

Readers often ask about practice partners, so this section is blunt: none of the four vendors' pages read for this guide describe a language-learning or social-skills mode.

For structured speaking practice, use a tool built for it. Speak is listed in the directory as an AI language tutor. A general assistant is the other route, and Hokai's guides to the best AI chatbots and to AI translation tools cover that ground. ChatGPT, Claude from Anthropic, and Gemini all take typed practice, and the voice modes differ by plan. If a lifelike synthetic voice is what you want, the best text-to-speech guide prices an hour of audio.

What the four cost in November 2026

Free tiers now meter you in some way. Treat the table as a floor, not a bill, because ads, caps, queues and top-up balances all shift the real cost of a month well away from the headline figure.

The annual Character.ai figure works out to about $7.92 a month, a saving of roughly 21% against paying monthly. If you chat for an hour a week, the free tier is plenty. If you use voice calls daily, the paid plan earns its keep, because it is the tier that adds them.

Teens and companion apps: what regulators and companies now say

This is the part to read if you are a parent. Four public actions in 2025 set the current baseline.

Hokai timeline of the rule changes below, from the European Data Protection Board, the FTC, the California Senate and Character.AI as read on 6 November 2026.

On 11 September 2025 the US Federal Trade Commission sent orders to seven companies that run consumer chatbots acting as companions: Alphabet, Character Technologies, Instagram, Meta, OpenAI, Snap and xAI. It is a study, not a case. The agency said it wants to know how firms test for harm to children, how they earn money from engagement, how they enforce their own age rules, and what they do with the personal information that users share in conversations with the bots.

On 13 October 2025 California enacted SB 243, effective 1 January 2026. Its sponsor's release says it requires operators to stop companion chatbots from exposing minors to sexual content, to remind minors that they are talking to AI, and to state that these products may not suit minors. It also requires a protocol for suicidal ideation that points users to crisis services, plus annual reporting, and gives families a private right to sue.

Italy's €5 million Replika decision, described above, shows how a European regulator treats an age gate that only asks you to type a birth date. The decision concerned age checks and the lawfulness of data use.

Character.ai's own change is the fourth action. The company said that regulator questions and news reports led it to end open-ended teen chat, and that it was funding a nonprofit AI Safety Lab. It also partnered with the nonprofit Koko and with ThroughLine, whose verified helpline network lists 1,500 services across 170 countries.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, contact your local emergency number or a crisis line. In the United States you can call or text 988.

Data and privacy side by side

The table compares what each vendor says on the points that matter. A blank in a policy is a gap you should weigh, not a safe default.

• Pi15 Leader
• Sesame30
• Replika60

Each figure is the shortest deletion window the vendor states: Pi after you delete, Sesame for visitors without an account, Replika after account closure.

The three windows are not like for like. Pi's clock starts when you delete. Sesame's applies only to people who never signed in. Replika's covers profile and memories after closure. Character.ai states none in the text read.

Anyone who wants chat that never reaches a vendor should read Hokai's guide to private AI, which ranks local and sealed options. None of these four apps is private in that sense.

Who should skip companion apps entirely

Skip them if you are under 18. Really. The one exception is an app built for your age, with parental controls you have read.

Skip them as a substitute for care. They are software. Replika's privacy policy states it is not a medical or health service, and asks you not to share health details.

Skip them if you cannot afford the data trade. Three of the four train on your content in some form. A voice recording or a selfie is harder to take back than a typed line.

Skip them too if you want software that does errands. For that, Hokai's ranking of personal AI agents and its guide to what those agents may do without asking fit better, and the ChatGPT alternatives guide lists seven assistants by reason. The wider AI chatbots directory shows more, among them Grok, Meta AI and Microsoft Copilot.

The strongest case against this ranking

The best objection is that an age gate is a form of theater. A teenager who wants in will type a false birth date, borrow a parent's phone, or find a rival with no gate. Italy's regulator found exactly that failure at Replika. So why rank on age rules at all?

Because the gates are not equal. Not close. A typed birth date proves nothing. A selfie estimate or an identity check at least raises the effort, and an identity check run by a third party that deletes the image within a day also limits what the app itself ever sees.

Character.ai's move is also structural: it removed the feature, not just the prompt. Still, no vendor here publishes how often its checks fail, so the ranking measures intent and method, not results. A parent should treat the best gate as one layer.

What would change this ranking

Three events would move the order. First, Replika or Character.ai could publish a fixed retention period for chat text, which would remove the biggest gap in the privacy table. Second, Sesame could add an explicit 18-and-over rule or an age check before its glasses ship in 2027. Third, the annual reports California's SB 243 requires, and the findings of the FTC study, will show for the first time how often these products meet a user in crisis.

Until then, pick by use and by age rule, read the data section of whichever app you choose, and revisit the settings every few months. The category is rewriting its rules in public, so a policy read today can be out of date by spring.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best AI companion app?

It depends on the job. Character.ai suits role-play, Replika suits one steady companion, and Sesame suits voice conversation. All four were judged on published policies, not long hands-on chats.

Are AI companion apps safe for teenagers?

Mostly not. Replika and Pi state a minimum age of 18, and Character.ai ended open-ended chat for under-18 users from 24 November 2025. Sesame states no minimum age. The FTC opened a study of companion chatbots and children in September 2025, and California's SB 243 took effect on 1 January 2026.

Do AI companion apps use my conversations to train their models?

Most do in some form. Character.ai's July 2026 policy lists model training as a use, and Sesame trains on logged-in content unless you opt out. Pi offers an opt-out in settings. Replika bars outside providers from training but uses anonymized snippets for its own safety models.

Is Replika free?

Replika is free to download with in-app purchases, but it publishes no price list. Its terms say plans and prices differ by platform, version and country, so the amount appears only at checkout. Check the screen before you subscribe, since renewals are automatic.

What happened to Character.ai for under-18 users?

Character.ai announced on 29 October 2025 that it would remove open-ended chat for users under 18, starting on 24 November 2025 in the US. Teens keep non-chat features such as Feed, Imagine, Avatar FX and Streams. The company also added age assurance using an in-house model and Persona.

Covered in this guide

• Character.ai: AI Chat, Reimagined: Your Words, Your World.
• Replika: AI companion app from Luka, Inc. with 3D avatars, voice and video calls; rated 18+ on iOS, 42 million users claimed. Free to download.
• Sesame: Voice-first personal agents on iOS and Android: Maya, Miles, Simone and Charlie, each with its own memory. Free in preview, glasses due in 2027.
• Anthropic: Anthropic is a Public Benefit Corporation started by 7 ex-OpenAI researchers. It builds the Claude model family and counts Amazon and Google among its largest backers.
• ChatGPT: ChatGPT is OpenAI's AI assistant, with 1.2 billion weekly users by OpenAI's count, the GPT-6 model family and plans that run from a free tier to a premium Pro tier.
• Claude: Claude is Anthropic's AI assistant, with a free tier, Pro, Max and Ultra personal plans, and Team and Enterprise seats. Opus access starts at Pro.
• Gemini: Google's multimodal AI assistant and model family, sold as a free app, tiered subscriptions and a pay-per-token API
• Grok: Chatbot from xAI that searches the web and X live, now sold with Grok Bot and Cursor inside The X Subscription.
• Meta AI: Meta's free assistant inside Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, powered by Muse Spark, with Meta One bundles for heavier image and video generation.
• Microsoft Copilot: Microsoft's AI assistant across Windows, Edge, Word, Excel, Outlook and Teams, from a free tier to per-seat work plans on OpenAI's latest GPT-5 models.
• OpenAI: OpenAI builds ChatGPT, the GPT-6 family (Astra, Sol, Luna), Codex and the OpenAI API. It reports 1.2B weekly ChatGPT users and an $852B valuation after its March 2026 round.
• Pi: A personal AI built for conversation rather than tasks: supportive, memory-enabled, and free.
• Speak: AI language tutor built around speaking practice rather than flashcards, from Speakeasy Labs. Seven languages, 15M+ downloads. No free tier and no published prices — a 7-day trial, then Premium or Premium Plus quoted in-app by region.
• xAI: Elon Musk's AI company (roughly 4,000 to 4,900 employees) builds the Grok models and merged into SpaceX, taking the combined business public on Nasdaq as the largest IPO on record.

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