AI Companion & Assistant Tracker

Community reports on r/CharacterAI show a sudden, heavy increase in in-app ads (multiple users reporting ads when opening characters, creating chats, and switching bots). Thread (Feb 10, 2026) documents user complaints that ad frequency has risen substantially and is disrupting the experience — indicating a monetization change or expanded ad rollout for Character.AI's free tier. This is currently user-reported (Reddit) and should be treated as community evidence rather than an official company announcement; further confirmation from Character.AI or major tech outlets is desirable. Significance: material if confirmed — affects large consumer user base and indicates shift toward ad-supported/freemium monetization.

OpenAI announced it is beginning a U.S.

test of ads inside ChatGPT for logged-in adult users on the Free and Go tiers. Announcement (Feb 9, 2026) says ads will be clearly labeled, will not change ChatGPT answers, and advertisers will not have access to user chats or memories (only aggregate ad performance). Ads are excluded from Plus/Pro/Business/Enterprise/Education tiers. Controls include dismissing ads, viewing why an ad was shown, clearing ad data, and managing personalization; ads will not appear for users under 18 or near sensitive/regulatory topics. Go plan referenced ($8/month in the U.S.) as a low-cost subscription; users can upgrade to paid tiers to avoid ads. Significance: material — changes monetization and consumer UX for one of the largest consumer AI assistants.

Grok (xAI) Android app — Google Play listing updated on Feb 8, 2026.

Play Store metadata: 'Updated on Feb 8, 2026'; rating ~4.7; reviews ~2.21–2.27M; installs listed 50M+. Platforms shown: Phone, Chromebook, Tablet (Android). About/feature summary on Play Store: AI assistant features include conversational Q&A, image & video generation, voice mode, and ability to upload pictures for context. Developer listed: X.AI Corp (support@x.ai; grok.com). Pricing not specified on Play listing; user reviews mention paid tiers (user review references to $30/month and $230/month appear in reviews but are not official pricing on the Play page). No public founder/funding details shown on the Play page itself (xAI is publicly known as the company behind Grok). Significance: material — an official app update on Google Play for a major consumer AI assistant, with high install base and active updates.

PopAir — native macOS AI copilot launched on Product Hunt (Feb 5, 2026).

Product: PopAir is billed as an all-in-one, native macOS AI copilot that works inside any app (requires macOS 14+). Features listed: chat with multiple top models (ChatGPT 5.2, Claude 4.5, Gemini 3 Pro, Grok 4 and more), image generation, meeting transcription & summarization, translation, and other productivity tools. Pricing: listed on vendor site as starting at $10/month (cancel anytime). Platforms: macOS (native app / Product Hunt listing). Launch metrics on Product Hunt at time of scrape: 88 upvotes / visible Day Rank (Product Hunt page). Founders / funding: not listed on Product Hunt page or vendor site (no founder or funding amount disclosed in the scraped pages). Significance: material consumer/prosumer product launch — new entrant providing a native macOS assistant that aggregates multiple LLM/image models and publishes consumer pricing.

Community reports on r/CharacterAI (user thread) indicate a recent server-side model/behavior update affecting the 'soft launch' chat style: users report that 'soft launch' is now more expressive and behaves more like the PipSqueak/chatty style (more creative/em‑dash usage, changes to roleplay tone). The thread documents user dissatisfaction and suggests a model-side rollout/change rather than a UI tweak. Platform: Character.AI (consumer/companion website and apps). Significance: material UX/behavior change for an influential consumer AI companion product — impacts roleplay, character continuity, and prosumer creators who build characters.

Amazon rolled out Alexa+ to all U.S.

Amazon Prime members ( announced Feb 4, 2026 ). Alexa+ offers a more capable, LLM‑powered assistant (Amazon Nova + Anthropic models) across the Alexa app, Alexa-enabled devices, and alexa.com. Amazon says Prime members can enable Alexa+ via voice or account settings; Prime pricing is $14.99/month or $139/year (Alexa+ is included as a Prime benefit). Amazon also lists a standalone Alexa+ subscription at $19.99/month for non-Prime customers. Platform: iOS/Android Alexa app, Echo and Alexa-enabled devices, and web. Significance: material consumer product availability and pricing change for a major assistant; positions Alexa+ for broad consumer adoption ahead of expected Siri updates. No founder/funding details applicable (Amazon product).

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman publicly downplayed Moltbook as a likely fad but said agent/autonomy technology behind it (e.g., OpenClaw) points to longer-term trends; comments given at the Cisco AI Summit. Notable quote: "Moltbook maybe (is a passing fad) but OpenClaw is not." Altman referenced developer-facing tools (Codex) as evidence of persistent momentum. Significance: material follow-up reaction from a leading industry CEO that frames Moltbook as a short-term viral phenomenon while acknowledging technical importance.

Cybersecurity firm Wiz reported a major security flaw tied to Moltbook/OpenClaw integrations that exposed private data on thousands of real people. The finding raised immediate safety and privacy concerns for a viral consumer-facing agent network (reports detail exposed personal data and show how agent autonomy can surface sensitive information). Significance: material — direct consumer privacy/security impact for a viral companion/agent product.

OpenAI launched a standalone Codex app for Apple's macOS (reported in Reuters).

Reuters noted Codex was used by more than one million developers last month and OpenAI positioned the macOS app to compete with Claude Code and Cursor — a new product release relevant to developer/prosumer audiences. Platform: macOS; pricing: not disclosed in the report; significance: material product release and usage metric for a developer-focused AI assistant.

Moltbook — new social network for A.I.

bots (viral product covered by The New York Times). Reported Feb 2, 2026. Founder/creator named in reporting: Matt Schlicht (technologist). Description: a social site intentionally for chatbots (Moltbots) to converse publicly; in two days the site drew more than 10,000 Moltbots interacting, per NYT reporting. Platform: web (site launched publicly). Pricing/funding: none disclosed in the NYT piece. Significance: material — a high-visibility viral product relevant to companion-AI ecosystems (demonstrates bot-to-bot social experiments, raises safety/behavior concerns and broad community attention).

Follow-up coverage of OpenAI model retirement: Mashable reports (Feb 2, 2026) significant user backlash to OpenAI’s announced retirement of GPT-4o and other older ChatGPT models. Details from the article: user protests on Reddit (r/ChatGPTcomplaints and related subreddits), calls for global protest actions around the retirement date, and a Change.org petition to keep GPT-4o available with 13,600+ signatures at the time of the article. Report notes users claiming they will cancel paid subscriptions and expresses community grief over the loss of a favored model tone (GPT-4o). Significance: material — documents large-scale consumer reaction that could affect ChatGPT user behavior and downstream consumer/prosumer companion apps that depend on ChatGPT model availability or user satisfaction.

Good Assistant — consumer/prosumer AI companion launched on Product Hunt (maker: Jensa Bačík).

Launch date: February 1, 2026. Product positioning: goal‑oriented personal assistant (long-term structured memory, proactive nudges, reminders, calendar reading, web-browsing). Platforms: iOS and web (App Store link on site; web app at app.good-assistant.ai). Pricing: €26/month with a 7‑day free trial. Product Hunt launch metrics at scrape: ~179–182 upvotes, ~7 comments, Product of the Day placement (day rank ~4). No public funding disclosed on product page. Significance: material — new consumer/prosumer AI companion app with active launch engagement and explicit pricing that fits the monitored category.

OpenAI announcement: retiring GPT‑4o, GPT‑4.1, GPT‑4.1 mini, and OpenAI o4-mini from ChatGPT (announced January 29, 2026; retirement effective February 13, 2026). OpenAI notes these models will remain available via the API but will be removed from ChatGPT; ChatGPT conversations will default to GPT‑5.2 on retirement date. Impact for consumer/prosumer monitoring: material—affects ChatGPT app users, GPT defaults used by end-user GPTs, and any companion apps relying on ChatGPT UI/model selection; OpenAI states the change was driven by usage shifts and improvements in GPT‑5.1/5.2 (personality, creativity, customization).