The lawsuit alleges that one of Character.AI's chatbots contributed to the death of a 14-year-old boy in Florida, prompting the company to implement new safety features.

Character.AI has raised over $150 million in funding, primarily from venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, and has recently implemented new safety features.

Anand, who was previously a board adviser for the company, takes over during a critical time when Character.AI is addressing child safety concerns amid an ongoing lawsuit linked to a tragic incident involving a minor.

Anand has extensive experience in the tech industry, having previously managed advertising products at Meta and serving as the head of product management for Microsoft's Azure cloud platform.

Anand's initial priorities include refining safety filters to reduce overreach, enhancing AI model quality, innovating memory features, and increasing transparency in decision-making processes.

The entertainment-focused chatbot market is rapidly expanding, with a significant portion of Character.AI’s users (66%) aged between 18 and 24, and a notable majority (72%) being women.

His appointment comes shortly after Google hired Character.AI's co-founder and former CEO, Noam Shazeer, which also led to federal investigations regarding potential antitrust issues related to their partnership.

Character.AI, a Google-backed AI chatbot provider with millions of users, has appointed Karandeep Anand as its new CEO as of June 20, 2025.