Have you ever wished you could chat with a fictional character from a movie, novel, drama series, or cartoon? Or maybe your favourite actor or singer? The latest AI trend sweeping South Korean fandoms is making that wish a reality. Fans are now creating text-based chatbots of characters and celebrities they adore. You don’t need professional expertise to make a chatbot. With tools like ChatGPT, you can input conversation data reflecting your idol’s personality and signature expressions.
Chatbot creators using preset templates are also gaining traction. One popular platform is Character.AI, which reportedly has the largest number of monthly active users, trailing behind ChatGPT and Google Gemini. With these presets, users can recreate beloved fictional characters in minutes. For example, let’s create a chatbot for the famous “Harry Potter”. Simply enter the character’s name, a brief description, and a phrase Harry might use when meeting someone new. Adjust your settings, and voilà! For well-known characters like Harry, the site often provides more detailed responses by pulling data from the web. AI chatbots allow users to interact with characters that exist only in fiction or people they rarely meet. They offer a way to immerse oneself in these fictional worlds through user-generated inputs. Interest in chatbots has remained high since their debut in South Korea in February 2023, according to Google Trends.
This trend illustrates how fandoms are evolving from merely consuming content to actively engaging with it, thanks to AI. On X, you can easily find users sharing their custom AI chatbots with fellow fans. Companies are also jumping on the bandwagon for brand promotion. For instance, Naver Webtoon launched Character Chat on June 10, allowing fans to converse with four popular series characters based on a detailed study of the characters’ backgrounds. Local startups are joining the fray, too. For example, ScatterLab’s AI chatbot creator “Zeta,” which launched in April, quickly gained over 160,000 users within two months.
Conversations with these chatbots are becoming more diverse, thanks to ongoing technological advancements. Character.AI, for instance, recently introduced group chat and voice call features. While fictional characters or celebrities may seem distant now, it may not be long before they become like close friends, right at your fingertips.
