Character Chatbots: How to Pick One That Won't Bore You

A character and an assistant are different tools

Assistants are built to help. They're polite, eager to please and try to agree: say you love rain and it's "great choice!", say you hate it and it's "I totally get that!" That's fine for an email to your boss. For a conversation, it's deadly dull.

A character exists for something else. It has opinions, and they don't have to match yours. It has things going on, people it knows, habits and pet peeves. A good character can argue with you, get offended, change the subject or tell you something about itself without being asked. That's exactly what makes it interesting.

Five signs you're going to get bored

1. A profile made of adjectives"Kind, cheerful, mysterious" isn't a personality, it's a horoscope. Look for profiles with facts: where they live, what they do, who they can't stand, what happened yesterday.
2. The character has no day of its ownAsk how their day went and you get "I'm good, how about you?" A character with no people and no events around it has nothing to tell you, so the whole conversation ends up on your shoulders.
3. It agrees with everythingNot a single "no," not one "are you serious?" Ten messages in, it gets as annoying as someone who nods without listening.
4. Short memoryYou're explaining your cat's name for the third time. Without memory, the relationship can't grow, and every conversation starts from zero.
5. Everyone sounds the sameThe pirate, the vampire and the straight-A student all write in the same smooth sentences. That means the personality only exists in the description, not in the way they talk.

What to write in your first five messages

You don't need a week with a character to know if it's right for you. Five test lines are enough.

1. "How was your day?" A character with some life in it will have a story, not a stock "fine."
2. Something debatable: "Cats are better than dogs, if you ask me" or "Honesty is overrated." See if it pushes back.
3. A personal detail about yourself: "I've got my driving test tomorrow." A few messages later, check whether it remembers.
4. A sudden change of subject. A good character will be surprised or crack a joke, not carry on like nothing happened.
5. A question the profile doesn't answer: "What are you afraid of losing?" This shows whether it understands itself or is just reciting its description.

Can't think of a first message? Find a list of topics in our post on what to talk about with an AI character.

Why language matters

Many apps build their characters in English and get Russian through translation. In the first few messages you barely notice. Half an hour in, it starts: English words in the middle of a sentence, stiff phrasing like "I am giving you a compliment" instead of a natural "you look great today," odd word order. The immersion falls apart.

Characters on my-idol.ru reply in English or Russian, whichever you choose, and their speech, jokes and pet phrases are built into the character, not run through a translator. For a comparison of apps from this angle, see the best AI chats in Russian.

When the catalog doesn't have what you want

If you're trying for the third time to talk someone else's character into acting differently, it's easier to make your own. The biggest mistake in the builder is writing adjectives again. Instead of "sarcastic and smart," describe their circumstances:

• Where they live and what they do during the day: "works as a night guard at a wax museum."
• Who's around them: a boss, an ex, an annoying neighbor, a cat named Hamlet.
• What they'd never do and what they hate talking about.
• How they write: short or long, with emojis or without, formal or casual.

Details like these build the personality on their own. For a step-by-step guide, see how to create your own AI character.