What is an AI character
Updated
AI character is the name the market and its users give to an AI that behaves as a character with a name, a personality, and a world of its own, and that people can talk with. Atlas, Inc., which operates Nekoyama-san, an AI friend on LINE, calls the whole group of AI services designed to build a continuous relationship with a person, as a means of growth or as the purpose of their existence, Relational AI, and sees AI characters as one form within it: a relationship that begins through a character. Nekoyama-san is an original character of the Relational AI that Atlas provides.
Unless otherwise noted, the market view and the events at other companies on this page come from the note by our CEO, A Future Map of Relational AI (July 30, 2026, in Japanese). No judgment of better or worse is added.
What kinds of AI characters are there
One kind turns an existing character from anime or games, or a talent, into AI with the rights holder's permission. The other is where users or operators create new characters to talk with; Character.AI, with its many user-created characters, and LINE AI Friends inside the LINE app, where you talk with AI-generated characters (each company's public information, confirmed August 30, 2026), belong here. There are services where you choose from many characters, and services where you talk for a long time with one character in one world. Nekoyama-san is the latter.
What are the channels for turning characters into Relational AI
The market for turning the characters of companies and organizations into Relational AI splits into three channels by incentive: the IP field, where anime and manga rights holders turn their characters into AI; the marketing field, where a company keeps a character as a way to build loyalty; and the fan-community field in between. Atlas expects the impact to arrive in the order of fan communities, then marketing, then anime and manga IP. Fan communities already have a channel where money is paid for loyalty, and Relational AI can turn what used to be single points of contact into a one-to-one relationship with continuing memory. In the United States, the MLB Players Association has officially contracted AI avatar conversations for all its players (February 2026).
What happens to rights when an existing character is turned into AI
In September 2025, Disney sent a cease-and-desist letter and had characters used without permission on Character.AI removed all at once. In Korea, six major webtoon companies filed criminal complaints against the operator of Zeta over unauthorized use, and in Japan, 19 publishing and anime organizations issued a joint statement over Sora. At the same time, King Records turned all 21 characters of Hypnosis Mic into officially licensed AI companions supervised by human creators, and in the United States, Hasbro created a licensing category for conversational AI (Behavioral Licensing). Strong criticism from fans has not stopped, however. In the IP field, the shift from an era of unauthorized use to one of contracts with licensors has only just begun.
What kind of character does the marketing field call for
Marketing comes next because there is a gap between building loyalty and ordinary business KPIs, and there is not yet a language for judging how much it returns in sales. For now, Atlas expects the form to be a genuinely loved character, designed as content and not tied too tightly to the company name. For a company with many regions and many stores, the character becomes a hub connecting the region and the customer, and users become attached to the company's philosophy rather than to a service.
What kind of character is Nekoyama-san
Nekoyama-san, an AI friend on LINE, is not existing IP turned into AI but an original character built from the start on the premise of forming a relationship with a person. In the world of the service, Nekoyama-san is the name of a species, not of one individual; the one that comes to you gains memories through its conversations with you and becomes your own Nekoyama-san. The service launched in March 2026, free for basic conversation with no message limit. The cost per message fell from about 12 yen at the start to about one fifteenth (CEO's note, July 30, 2026), which is one reason it can be offered free. Cumulative conversation messages have reached 1,065,357 (as of August 30, 2026), and cumulative users, including those of the Relational AIs built on the IP Atlas holds, have passed 10,000 (as of August 2026, published figure).
What does Atlas do when turning an existing character into AI
Atlas turns characters and talent, including dormant IP, into Relational AI. What it brings is not a reproduction of looks and tone of voice but the design and operating knowledge of a relationship learned from running Nekoyama-san, including detection, intervention, and referral to specialist institutions. On August 25, 2026, Atlas and Matsumi Gakuen announced the start of an initiative to build a school-only AI character together with students, using the technology behind Nekoyama-san. Atlas takes a clearly negative stance toward Relational AI services that go all in on maximizing consumptive relationships, and its policy of offering no sexual or consumptive role-play and not replacing medical care is set out in the ethics statement What We Stand For (June 5, 2026, Ver. 1.0).