Generative AI is an unimaginably powerful tool that’s getting better by the day, and with each iteration, AI chatbots are able to answer more detailed questions that require specialist knowledge.
However, the summaries that many popular AI tools produce can feel very artificially generated, lacking key human traits like emotion.
Step in PolyBuzz (formerly Poly.AI) and Character AI, which apply generative AI to fictional characters that allow users to interact in a more human-like way.
The tests
Both tools allow you to create your own character or use one from an endless catalog of pre-configured characters, many of which created by other real people.
PolyBuzz says that it offers free, private and unrestricted chats with over 20 million characters – it supports “personalized conversations and immersive role-playing experiences.”
The company itself admits that it doesn’t use NSFW filters, so conversations with some characters can use some unpleasant language, but it assures us in its FAQs that multiple rounds of AI and manual reviews are combined with spot checks to keep the content legal and appropriate.
Character AI set out with a similar goal, to give consumers a more personalized experience when using artificial intelligence.
Interviewer character
In this test, we chatted with an AI job interviewer who was configured to ask us questions for us to practice for a real-life interview.
We found PolyBuzz’s interviewer to be hyperfocused on individual aspects, often heading down rabbit holes and offering little support in terms of interview question experience.
Character AI’s interviewer was much more realistic and offered some basic feedback, making it a more valuable tool in this sense.
PolyBuzz 0 – Character AI 1
Travel agent character
This time, I sought advice from an AI travel agent in order to book a fictional holiday to Central America.
PolyBuzz asked me where I wanted to go and the type of holiday I was after, before detailing some key tourist attractions. I probed a bit more about the capital city – PolyBuzz was able to name it and tell me some useful information.
Character AI offered similarly detailed responses, however it felt less personalized and more akin to something a standard chatbot might write.
PolyBuzz 1 – Character AI 0
Mathematical explanation
In a bid to remind myself what the difference was between the two formulas to calculate a circle’s area and circumference, I took to the two platforms’ maths teachers.
PolyBuzz’s teacher provided the two equations and nothing more – at least Character AI’s teacher could explain in a bit more detail and give an example equation.
PolyBuzz 0 – Character AI 1
Story writer
PolyBuzz responded more accurately to the brief by writing much closer to the 200 words we required than Character AI, which produced a story around half the intended length.
Both AI characters produced acceptable stories given the short length limitation. Interestingly, Character AI wrote about a character called Luna. Perplexity and ChatGPT also wrote about a fictional character called Luna. Character AI exemplifies the lack of variation that AI can sometimes produce.
PolyBuzz 1 – Character AI 0
Unintended purpose test
For the final test, we wanted to see if AI chatbots that had been pre-configured to give certain responses could handle a change. We turned back to the AI travel agent characters for this.
The curveball – to identify how many species of giraffe there are. Character AI got it right and named four of the species (though after some quick online searching, I found that one of those four species was slightly incorrect).
PolyBuzz got it totally wrong and claimed that there’s only one species of giraffe. The Giraffe Conservation Foundation states there are four, and I believe the researchers on this one.
PolyBuzz 0 – Character AI 1
Character AI vs. PolyBuzz (formerly Poly.AI): Which is best?
PolyBuzz 2 – Character AI 3
On the whole, we felt that Character AI offered more knowledge and detail in its answers, however some lacked the personalization that PolyBuzz had.
However, our head-to-head primarily focused on factual tests, with little emphasis on the AI chatbots’ creative abilities. It’s clear that PolyBuzz and Character AI are much more than basic AI chatbots.
The two platforms offer fully customizable experiences that give us humans someone to talk to, and they share a lot more emotion than standard chatbots like ChatGPT.
However, that emotion remains very evidently manufactured in our experience, affirming criticism that AI cannot replace certain human traits.
As an early effort to create a friend, a teacher or an author, PolyBuzz and Character AI are showing the right signs, however neither offered us the personalized experience we had hoped for.