Google discussing investment in Character.AI?

It has been revealed that Google’s parent company Alphabet is considering a large investment in Character.AI, a fast-growing artificial intelligence chatbot startup. This investment will strengthen existing partnerships to train Character.AI’s models using Google’s cloud services and Tensor Processing Units (TPUs). This reflects a recent trend of large technology cloud service providers working with AI companies to drive use of specific clouds or hardware. Character.AI, founded by developers from Google in 2021, raised awareness by releasing its first Persona chatbot in September last year. In March of this year, the company was recognized as having a corporate value of $1 billion by attracting $150 million in investment in a Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz.