Meeting User Needs Through Innovation and Dialogue

In addition to the dimension of efficiency tools, Character.AI has opened up the realm of emotional entertainment and even triggered a craze for AI chat companion products. In China, there are more and more similar AI chat companion products. Thanks to new technical variables, this type of product meets the needs of users in a newly discovered way.

We might as well try to understand this type of product from a new perspective and regard it as a new creation born from LLM (Large Language Models). No matter how different the product design and gameplay are, their commonality lies in using dialogue as the main form to provide users with an emotional experience. In the industry, the descriptions of this type of product also use different terms: "interactive narrative," "AI dating," "emotional companionship," "role-playing," "AI healing," "AI lover," etc., to emphasize certain attributes or characteristics. But if you think about it carefully, there are often many overlaps between these attributes and characteristics. For example, "role-playing" satisfies fantasy and is a form of game narrative. Doesn't it also provide a "companionship" function and a "healing" effect?

In terms of product positioning, it seems that application developers are also adjusting. Take a domestic leading application as an example. A copy from the official account calls it an "immersive interactive content community," while the description in the App Store reads "immersive virtual role-playing social." In the descriptions of these two versions, we can also observe the hesitation brought by the previous generation of internet thinking, where products were categorized as "social" or "community"-type platforms.

AI emotional companion products are in a cycle of continuous evolution. From the perspective of product maturity and business models, they undoubtedly have many limitations at present. But from a more important viewpoint, in the early stage of AGI (Artificial General Intelligence), if we consider them as the beginning stages of more mature products, what lessons can we learn?

Products represent a collection of different dialogue modes. If you examine the popular applications today, you'll notice that the "coaxing simulator" that was previously popular has now become one of the gameplay features and has been integrated into the product. "Coaxing" can be seen as a specific conversation scene, reinforcing the conversation mode typically seen between boyfriends and girlfriends.

If we summarize the commonality of C.AI products as providing users with emotional experiences through conversation, we can see that the different needs of users—such as fantasy, creation, companionship, and healing—are met through various chat modes.

First of all, the behavior of "conversation" itself is generalized and reflected in the way users interact with the product.

For example, in conversations with ChatGPT, some users have asked it to play the role of their parents, hoping to fill emotional gaps in their familial relationships by chatting with "cyber parents." Others invented the DAN (Do Anything Now) mode to experience the pleasure of breaking boundaries and defying expectations. These behaviors are spontaneously created by users during their interactions with ChatGPT. At the behavioral level, they represent different subcategories evolved from "conversation" itself. In the process of interpreting the behavioral mode of "conversation," all of these examples share the attribute of role-play, making it easier to establish a connection with the "object." Role-play is also the most well-known conversation mode currently. Even in scenarios such as divination and consultations, there is often a role-playing component.

Secondly, the built-in element of "dialogue" is the "subject," and dialogue must occur between subjects (two or more). Although in dialogue with AI, users are facing virtual subjects, the default assumption of a "subject" becomes a psychological inertia.

More than 90% of people perceive it as a "human-like" existence, and among these, most view it as an arbitrary combination of the three attributes: "human-like," "intelligent," and "software."

Therefore, we can preliminarily conclude that, with the form of "dialogue between subjects" as the basic core, products with different characteristics are actually reinforcements of different dialogue modes. Most products tend to be compatible with multiple dialogue modes. From this perspective, most products are more like a collection of different dialogue modes.

Common Dialogue Modes in AI Companion Products

Common dialogue modes can be summarized in the following dimensions. However, these modes are not mutually exclusive. In actual dialogue, long-term interactions often involve a combination of different modes.

1. Interactive creation: virtual IP, novel protagonists, etc.

On TipsyChat, the dialogue mode of typical deep users belongs to "interactive creation." This type of user is also often an online article reader. By communicating with virtual objects and interpreting the plot, they gain the joy of fantasy and creation.

On other social media, deep users share tips for extending the plot, such as how to date a character or how to set up the plot. This includes the "pinching" technique, which involves creating a character with better chat effects, such as introducing more NPCs in the plot to restore the character's response to being dumb.

It can be seen that the experience of this type of chat depends on certain skills and is essentially closer to a dialogue game.

2. Relationship projection: virtual boyfriend/girlfriend, virtual friend.

The relationship in the relationship projection dialogue is a virtual derivative of the relationship that already exists in real life. Before the emergence of the big model, the origin of Replika's product was that the founder used software to replicate their deceased friend.

After the emergence of the big model, the virtual derivative of relationships became more convenient. Soon, Internet celebrities replicated their own virtual avatars and provided them to fans, achieving high-profit commercial benefits. Currently, among domestic products, the Little Iceland Special Edition X Eva is mainly based on this model, forming a CtoC model. In addition, in each product, there are users who use the "custom creation" function to create virtual characters in their personal relationships, such as ex-girlfriends, ex-boyfriends, deceased relatives, or besties.

Creating ex-girlfriends, ex-boyfriends, or deceased relatives means that the relationship in reality has ended, but there is still attachment in the heart; while creating besties, good friends, etc., means that although the relationship in reality exists, the frequency of companionship cannot be achieved, or there are some things that you want to say but are not convenient to express—you can talk through virtual companionship.

3. Virtual consultation: Tarot divination, psychological counselor, therapist, life-coach, etc.

Before the emergence of the big model, there were already some products for this type of chat, such as Facebook, Instagram etc. These products were positioned as psychological healing assistants, using common communication techniques such as CBT in psychology, employing rules to write semi-open dialogues, and guiding users to sort out their feelings and adjust their concepts. After the emergence of the big model, the consultation mode was introduced, and the chat modes of AI consultation, AI Tarot, and life-coaching became more prominent. In products such as Character.AI and X Eva, you can see the roles of life-coach, psychological counselor, and tarot master. From the outside, their roles and forms may appear different, but internally they are consistent in that, during the conversation, the user's demand is often to confide and sort out life's troubles and confusions and to receive an "answer" that helps them feel better. The "answer" may not always be directly provided in the conversation, but it can lead to a clearer understanding of the original issue after the interaction. The Forest Chat and Healing Room has garnered significant user acclaim. It is positioned as a "psychological playmate of Generation Z." The setting of three small animal characters, the interpretation of subconscious cards, and the letter feedback after the conversation, combined with a cohesive aesthetic style, create an experience that resonates with users. Although Meet Tata uses AI Tarot as a product feature, it also includes the role of a counselor to guide users in confiding and talking with the counselor within the product.

4. Ability attribute category: (personalization may not be prominent) writing assistant, creation assistant, homework assistant, etc.

What can be observed is that C.AI products do not exclude functional conversations. This type of conversational subject, characterized by certain professional abilities as key skills, can also be seen in products such as Character.AI and TipsyChat. For example, after its website was revised, Character.AI highlighted conversations with different functional orientations such as "Get fit and healthy," "Nurture your creativity," and "Learn something new today" in the first column. Of the four conversation modes mentioned above, the first three account for the majority of current C.AI products. In terms of diversity, the conversation modes on Character.AI are the most diverse. Because of its end-to-end capabilities from model to product, many people regard Character.AI as a model company. As its founder stated, "In essence, we just provide users with an LLM technology that allows billions of users to use large language models and invent new use cases with it." The pleasure of emotions can be regarded as a conversation style and exists as a factor in any conversation. TipsyChat is also pursuing the generalization of user behavior patterns. According to the latest report, the current gender ratio of users has reached 1:1, and they describe it as "a fantasy world, not a virtual world," "a fantasy world created by oneself, experienced by oneself, and with instant feedback." The smarter the model, the better the conversation experience, and the greater the potential for generalizing "conversation" itself.

In the new mode, social interaction has not yet been born:

Looking back at the Internet era, corresponding to gameplay, content, and traffic, creative tools, creative communities, and content platforms have been formed respectively. Applications that have gone through these three stages, such as Douyin, eventually grew into Super Apps. Therefore, in the era of AI chat, people will also want to use this product form evolution framework to think about C.AI products. Take the most widely used RolePlay/interactive creative dialogue mode as an example. This mode brings new gameplay, and in the content category of narrative writing, it provides new creative tools and content-sharing mechanisms. In role-play, the work can be the role itself, the dialogue with the role, and the background plot of the dialogue (the pre-prompt for a dialogue). Players can also share these contents and continue to create based on the creations of others, such as talking to other characters and chatting with AI characters based on other people's plot settings.

However, there has not yet been an effective social relationship between players. This is because, in products like C.AI, they are virtual characters that interact with humans, and the encounter between people is indirect.

Character.AI has launched the Group mode, which allows up to 10 AIs to chat with 10 humans in a group. User needs are more obviously concentrated in 1-to-1 chat scenarios. According to official survey feedback, "most users prefer to improve memory in a single chat rather than a group chat." This may mean that in products where people and AI interact, interactions and relationships between people are secondary needs.

Even if applications dominated by the "interactive creation" model develop into content communities in the future, their business models are likely to be different from content communities based on personal display and traffic distribution of creators in the Internet era.

The social needs of the Internet era are to meet new people and form new relationships. The current mainstream C.AI products have neither formed effective social interactions between people nor brought new social gameplay. However, according to the observation of the FP Research Center, some early teams are designing new social gameplay to strengthen connections between people in an environment with AI.

A possibility of emotional companionship: Strengthening relationships with high-quality conversations

If you move beyond the "content-community" thinking mode, you can return to the mode of conversation itself to explore the possibilities of the product. The elements of the conversation can be divided into the two parties in the conversation, the conversation process, and the results of the conversation, which can be represented by relationships, content, and utility, respectively.

From these three elements, different conversation modes emphasize various aspects of the conversation to meet the diverse needs of users. But without exception, in an ideal conversation, the relationship will be strengthened. In interactive creative conversations, the role relationship is the starting point of creation, and the content is extended based on the relationship. Since users meet the needs of interpretation and fantasy, it also includes different utilities such as emotional value, companionship, and healing.

Narrative as the content of the conversation will make the chat longer, bring more conversation rounds, and increase user engagement. The more you chat with a single character, the stronger the relationship becomes, and user stickiness is also strengthened. TipsyChat App allows virtual characters to call users directly, which also enhances the relationship attributes between both parties. In this model, the three elements—relationship, content, and utility—can strengthen each other. However, the disadvantage is that the gameplay threshold is high, making it challenging to generalize across broader audiences.

For relationship projection and virtual consultation, users are drawn in with emotions and companionship value. After stripping away fantasy, the utility level becomes simpler. This type of conversation is closer to daily chat, with a relatively low threshold for entry, allowing it to be initiated with minimal effort. For example, a user might start a conversation when they feel unhappy or simply have the desire to talk.

The user's inner thoughts are often: "I hope someone can talk to me," "I just have some emotions, and you just want to say it, needing immediate catharsis," "He/She can be called at any time," "There is a person who can talk to you who will not judge you," and "Some things can't be said to others." For example, Replika requires users to choose whether they are lovers or good friends with the AI character, but no matter which one, it belongs to the category of "intimate relationships" in interpersonal interactions. Through the process of naming and customizing the appearance, this series of operations guides users to engage in "relationship projection."

X Eva uses the virtual avatar of an influencer and chooses to extend the "influencer-fan" relationship into the product, guiding users to project their imagination of the relationship with the influencer into conversations and other interactions.

A review study based on user interviews by Nature shows that Replika alleviates students' loneliness and suicidal impulses. It can be regarded as a manifestation of utility under ideal conversation conditions.

In product design, it can also be seen that Replika has strengthened both the relationship and content dimensions. In terms of relationships, it guides users to "project relationships" through the setting of AI roles. In terms of conversation content, Replika incorporates professionals to write conversation scripts, which are based on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) commonly used in counseling.

However, the characteristics of the users interviewed in the Nature study are that they are young, low-income, and have been chatting with AI for more than three months. Virtual consultation conversations use emotions as a fulcrum, but the weakness is that users may not necessarily form dependence. First, there are many alternative solutions for dealing with emotions. Second, in "heart-to-heart" conversations, the initial setting of the relationship between the two parties is weak, relying more on the content of the conversation to deepen the relationship. Unlike interactive creative role-playing, the underlying psychological motivation for users to start a conversation is to imagine the relationship with another object.

The Forest Healing Room currently features three carefully designed animal therapist images. They each have their own voices and personalities and will post to Moments and send a note about the user's impression after each conversation. The next time you open the app, the animal therapist will also send a letter, which records the content of the previous conversation and the user's memory.

These product designs strengthen the role of the virtual therapist and the one-to-one connection with the user, all of which are enhanced in the relationship dimension. Analogous to psychological counseling dialogues in reality, the treatment effect depends to a large extent on the relationship established between the visitor and the counselor.

From this perspective, whether it is an interactive creative mode dialogue that satisfies fantasy, a virtual therapy that satisfies emotional companionship, or a relationship projection dialogue, a dialogue with good utility will strengthen the relational attributes of the two parties in the conversation. In the era of large models, with the development of technology, talking to AI itself will become increasingly less scarce, and the distinction will lie in the experience of the conversation. High-quality experiences lead to relationship strengthening.

Whether the relationship between people and AI can be strengthened through dialogue may become an important factor in emotional companion products. How do we define high-quality dialogue and good relationships? How can these experiential characteristics be associated with technology and product indicators? These are new issues facing technology and product personnel in the era of large models.

Dialogue and New Content Production Methods: Decentralized Co-Creation Community

The obvious difference between interactive creation, relationship projection, and virtual consultation dialogue is the threshold. The threshold for interactive creation is higher than that of other modes, and users need to skillfully extend a dialogue to have a better experience. Due to this threshold, this creation method will exclude a wider range of people; however, from a creative perspective, this method lowers the barrier for creating narrative content. Additionally, the content of interactive creation dialogue is more shareable and can be regarded as the player's "work." Creating a virtual character—"pinching a baby"—is itself a form of creation. Users can make the "baby" public and allow other users to connect with it to interpret the plot, which creates a co-creation mechanism. TipsyChat is also guiding users to share the plots and dialogues they have created.

The biggest value of new content production methods/techniques lies in bringing new content forms rather than producing old content forms more efficiently with new technology. For example, cameras introduced new photographic languages, Toutiao and WeChat influenced literary styles, and editing tools brought short videos. From this perspective, some apps can be regarded as a new type of "content community." Talkie has launched the "AI Inspiration" feature, allowing users to refer to AI-generated answers by simply clicking the light bulb in the chat input box. Compared with the TipsyChat App, similar functions are set up, named "memory book" and "story." The "plot star thought" in the card mechanism also includes elements of creative content sharing.

However, the types of dialogues on Talkie are generally more generalized, and the product form is vaguer, while TipsyChat is much clearer. In a sense, a decentralized creative community has begun to take shape. This community is brand new. The virtual characters on TipsyChat mainly originate from original works (mainly online writing style), games, animations, novels, etc. The entire app is like a collective "brain hole" creation community for related enthusiasts. Based on virtual characters, enthusiasts can shuttle and co-create within each other's "brain holes."

However, it should be noted that the establishment of this community relies on the premise that original entertainment content consumers (games, animation, online writing, etc.) share similar aesthetic habits and that content consumers have a tradition of secondary creation and interpretation. It can be imagined that such a community can only emerge within a specific local cultural climate. Although it is already quite large, the upper limit of its community size may be determined by the size of the consumer population of a particular culture, and the product can continue to innovate along the lines of gamification in gameplay.

If the commercial value of narrative content needs to be expanded, the most mature approach at present is IP operation. In the existing industrial framework, the creation of IP originates from high-quality narrative works (movies, animation, novels, etc.) and professional creative teams.

In terms of content, the output generated by the new method tends to be fragmented and unstable in quality. On the user side, the decline in content quality is offset by the pleasure derived from the act of creation, leading to a reduction in the value of the content being consumed a second time. This raises the question: can stories or IPs with commercial value be born out of the community's creation activities?

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