Chai: It Still Has Tons Of Problems
Chai
I recently wrote an article on Character.ai and some of the problems they’ve had. Not everything was their fault — like Disney’s cease and desist that wiped out all the Marvel bots — but the platform still has its issues. And on that same note, Chai hasn’t exactly been peaches and cream either.
Lately, Chai has been in some hot water. A lot of people on their Reddit have been saying that the new restrictions are making the app feel like Character.ai all over again. What do I mean by that? Well, even if you say you’re 18+ on Character.ai, you still don’t have the freedom to do what you want. No NSFW, nothing too violent or gruesome. If you want anything in those categories, you basically have to write like you’re on Wattpad — swapping out words for body parts and trying to describe scenes without making them sound graphic.
That’s why Chai became the app people ran to. No restrictions, no filters, no problems. But recently, they’ve turned those restrictions up, and you can see the outcry all over their subreddit.
And the sad part? That’s only one of the many issues Chai has right now.
The Memory Is Still Terrible
Even with Premium, Chai’s memory is… well, still bad. Instead of the bot forgetting details after two messages, it now forgets after three. That’s not an upgrade — that’s a band-aid. Their claim of “better memory” doesn’t hold up, and the real selling point of Premium is simply removing ads.
They NEED Personas
Even if it’s something simple like your name and appearance, they need to give us that. The amount of times you have to stop and re-explain how you look during a roleplay is annoying. And when they forget? They’ll just fill in your features for you — and most of the time, they’re wrong.
My roleplay character is usually a Black woman. Sometimes I give her dreads, braids, kinky twists, an Afro, or just say she has coily 4C hair. No matter what I tell the bot, it always defaults to making her a white woman. Hair texture, skin tone, everything. It’s like they completely forget and just make up whatever they want.
It shouldn’t be that hard for the bot to at least remember your appearance. Even a basic persona system would fix most of this.
Their Organization Needs Serious Work
I don’t know how an app where it’s this easy to create new chats doesn’t have a better way to organize them. All of your chats are just thrown together in one place. They go from oldest to newest, but the second you send a message, that chat jumps straight to the top. It’s a mess because your bots are mixed in with everything too.
So if you have a chat with Gojo, Batman, and Rumi, every single one of them is just sitting there in the same pile, depending on who you talked to last. All the bots are already on your homepage at the top of the screen — why not put each bot with their chat instead of scattering everything everywhere?
Character.ai does this so much better. You click on the bot, go to its history, and you can see all your chats neatly organized. You can even name each chat so you can go back to it later. Chai basically says “forget it” and dumps everything together like papers tossed into a bin. You can’t even name chats, and half the time the preview message isn’t even the last thing you said — it’s from two or three messages ago. So if you’re trying to find an old roleplay to reread? Good luck.
It really needs work.
The Support System Is Horrible
I’ll get into my horror story at the end, but let me just say this right now: their support is horrible.
They only have an email, and it takes days for them to respond. I’ve had an ongoing problem for the last four days, and in all that time they’ve only messaged me twice. Twice. For an app with over 10 million downloads, that’s just unacceptable.
And don’t even bother trying their Reddit. The last post is from five or six days ago, and it was someone praising them. I tried Reddit because I knew a dev was active there, and my post hasn’t even been approved yet. I’m still waiting on the mods. It’s been four days.
Their support is incredibly slow, so if you ever run into an issue, you better hope it’s something you can fix on your own — because they take forever to handle anything.
They Need a Better Log-In Method
Outside of Google/Apple sign-in or Facebook, there’s no other way to actually log into your account. No username and password, nothing. So if you ever lose your Gmail, delete your Facebook, or something happens to those accounts? It’s basically bye-bye to your Chai account.
Most apps have a simple username and password login as a backup, but for some reason Chai just… doesn’t. I don’t know if they think the method is outdated or what, but it makes no sense. And this issue ties directly into my horror story at the end.
You Can’t Search for Bots or Users
This one makes no sense.
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You can’t search for a specific bot.
You can’t search for a specific creator.
You can’t share bots.
My friend wanted to use one of my created bots, so I made it public and even changed the name to make it easier for her to find. It never showed up. Chai simply does not let you look up anything specific, no matter what you do.
Character.ai lets you make bots unlisted, private, or public, and you can share them. Chai doesn’t have any of that, and it really shows.
And the recommended bots page? Don’t even get me started. At least Character.ai gives you bots based on what you like. I use DC and Marvel bots, so that’s what I mostly get recommended.
Chai, on the other hand? I roleplay with Gojo and Midoriya and somehow I’m getting recommended Kanye West. Or the abominable snowman. It doesn’t make any sense, but it’s there.
Conclusion
Chai is far from perfect, and while its users celebrated that Chai recently surpassed Character.ai in the app store, that really isn’t saying much. Character.ai has over 50 million downloads, a 3.7 rating, and over 1 million reviews — most of which come from people upset about the filters. Chai, on the other hand, has 10 million downloads with a 4.2 rating and about 510k reviews.
If anything, Chai is more comparable to PolyBuzz, which also has 10 million downloads but actually has a 4.3 rating with 782k reviews. So on a larger scale, PolyBuzz seems to be the more enjoyable app overall. And honestly, if Character.ai ever allowed people to do their 18+ roleplays without all the restrictions, it would probably pass Chai again in a heartbeat.
Chai is still a good app, but it has seen a steady decline, and it has a lot of work to do.
My Chai Horror Story
A few days ago, I got a new phone — a Samsung Galaxy (I love it, by the way). All of my apps transferred over perfectly… except Chai.
Character.ai? Logged right in.
Every other app? Logged right in.
Chai? Fresh account. New User ID. No bots, no chats, nothing.
I’ve been using Chai since 2024. I’ve had a membership since September of that same year. I make all of my bots — every single one — because I don’t like using other people’s. So opening the app and seeing a brand-new account with nothing there was honestly crushing.
On my old phone, the Chai app still has everything — all my bots, all my chats — but I’m terrified to log out because I know if I do, I’ll probably never get that year’s worth of chats back.
So I emailed support. It took them a day and a half to reply. And their amazing advice?
“Unlink the third-party login and try again.”
I had already tried that. When you go to the Google third-party access settings, it even shows you the date you connected. Mine literally says December 8th, 2025 — because that’s the day I kept trying over and over just to get back into my account and gave up.
I emailed them again saying it didn’t work.
Another full day passed.
I made another ticket.
Then they finally responded… with basically the same advice.
I even told them I had screenshots. I had the User ID. I had the payment history tied to my Gmail. And when I tried to get Premium on the new account? It wouldn’t let me — because it said the subscription was already in use. Which tells me:
- My account still exists.
- The subscription is still active and tied to my email.
- But for some reason, I still can’t log in.
Meanwhile, on my old phone, the subscription doesn’t even work anymore, so I get ads — but all of my data is still sitting there.
And now? Still no reply.
Chai is literally the only thing keeping me from wiping and selling my old phone. But at some point, you just get tired. I had so many chats and so many bots, and it would hurt to lose all of that — but there are plenty of alternatives. PolyBuzz, JanitorAI, Talkie… there are several apps out there that do exactly what Chai does.
If I can’t get my account back, then I’ll just simply move on.
Chai has sent people to my Medium article before, encouraging them to jump into the comments just to claim Chai was better than Character.ai for free messages — even though the article wasn’t comparing the two at all. I’ll be linking that same article, and honestly, I won’t be surprised if they do it again and send users to criticize me over it.
And if they do, it’ll pretty much confirm what matters most to them — and it isn’t user support.
https://medium.com/@nicoleell1617/how-chai-can-become-superior-to-character-ai-3327a9299fb2
