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  • Professor Andrea M. Armani, University of Southern California
  • Ruti Ben-Shlomi, Ph.D., LightSolver
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  • Mohan Wang, Ph.D., University of Oxford
  • Professor Xuchen Wang, Harbin Engineering University
  • Professor Stefan Witte, Delft University of Technology

CHAI AI – The Research Lab Has Now Trained A Social LLM That Beats OpenAI ChatGPT, Perplexity, and DeepSeek in Mobile Engagement

CHAI, the leading social AI platform, has significantly outperformed OpenAI's ChatGPT in key mobile engagement metrics, according to new data published in a recent TechCrunch report analyzing the competitive AI application landscape.

(PRUnderground) June 4th, 2025

CHAI, the leading social AI platform, has significantly outperformed OpenAI’s ChatGPT in key mobile engagement metrics, according to new data published in a recent TechCrunch report analyzing the competitive AI application landscape.

Superior User Engagement

Drawing on insights from mobile intelligence provider Sensor Tower, the analysis reveals that CHAI users spend, on average, 196% more time on the mobile app compared to ChatGPT users. Additionally, CHAI users engage in 30% more sessions, demonstrating the platform’s exceptional ability to foster deeper, more sustained user interactions.

SOTA AI Training Strategies

CHAI has implemented many novel strategies and optimized them for the social AI setting, such as best-of-N sampling, DPO / SimPO / CPO / GRPO. Instead of relying solely on maximum likelihood training, those strategies steer LLMs using real human preference signals, improve ELO scores, and lead to more engaging conversations and longer Day-30 retention.

CHAI’s Journey in Cutting-Edge AI Research

2022 – First Mover Advantage in Social AI

CHAI becomes the first Social AI platform, preceding both Character AI and ChatGPT by over a year, to reach 1 million users, with our ‘chat creator tool’.

2023 – AI-Assisted Creation Breakthrough

AI-assisted creation results in +56% higher quality prompts, and +33% more AI being created by users.

2024 – Democratizing AI Training

Phase I of user-controlled SFT has begun. Power users are able to train AI with performance almost 2x the engagement rate of in-house AI systems.

2025 – The Future of Personalized AI

Work has commenced on user-generated AI (UGAI). This will match the power of SFT + RLHF and put it in the hands of users, so that each agent on the platform will be served by a unique, user-trained AI.

Was CHAI the first AI Platform? CHAI was the first consumer AI product to reach 1 million users, leveraging the open-sourced LLM GPT-J, before ChatGPT or Llama.

What is CHAI? CHAI is a social AI platform where users can create their own AI. Since its launch three years ago, CHAI has experienced significant growth, particularly among Gen Z users. Now, to support further growth and wider adoption, CHAI has redesigned its brand.

Can you use CHAI AI in a browser? As of March 2025, no. CHAI is focused on delivering the most engaging social AI experience by hiring talented engineers to refine its app. While there are currently no plans for a web app, this may change in the future.

Is CHAI AI safe? CHAI has implemented a range of safety features that allow users to engage in dynamic chats while encouraging them to stay within established guidelines. By building better AI, CHAI aims to enhance user value and experience.

What makes CHAI special? CHAI is designed to be the most engaging social AI, delivering highly entertaining conversations. Many users rely on it to craft interactive stories and immersive experiences.

Why do people love CHAI? CHAI employs advanced AI techniques to increase the entertainment value of its bots. Users chat with AI to write interactive novels and have engaging conversations, supported by a variety of genres that appeal to avid novel readers.

Sometimes regarded as the best free AI chatbot, CHAI is paving its way to widespread adoption of conversational social AI for entertainment.

Who is the founder? William Beauchamp is a 2x founder, first started building CHAI with his sister in Cambridge UK in 2020. After building the first AI chat platform they relocated to Palo Alto.

Are they hiring? CHAI is a rapidly growing company that is known for paying very high salaries with an intense culture focused on delivering results and iterating quickly. Apply on CHAI’s website.

The post CHAI AI – The Research Lab Has Now Trained A Social LLM That Beats OpenAI ChatGPT, Perplexity, and DeepSeek in Mobile Engagement first appeared on

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