AI App Shutdowns: A Dated Tracker of the Companion, Avatar and Legacy Apps That Closed, Sold or Went Bankrupt

These 20 AI companion, avatar, assistant and legacy products shut down, went bankrupt, sold, pivoted or lost a core feature between 2023 and October 2026. Dates are when the change took effect unless the row says otherwise.

Read the table by the "what users lost" column. A bankruptcy like Character.AI's can keep the service running for months, while an orderly wind-down like Dot's still ends with the companion gone after 30 days. The worst exits were the abrupt ones, like Replika cutting romantic role-play overnight in 2023 (Dazed, 2023) and Moxie going dark with no refunds.

2026 brought two formal insolvencies, Character.AI's Chapter 11 filing on October 12 and Soul Machines' receivership from February 5, plus product shutdowns at OpenAI (Sora, ChatGPT Atlas and GPT-4o in ChatGPT), Huxe, Wsup AI and HereAfter AI.

Character.AI is the case to watch. Disney is the stalking-horse bidder at US$20 million, other bidders can top that offer, and the sale is expected to close in late November or early December 2026 (Straight Arrow News, 2026). Pennsylvania, which is suing the company, says the platform has more than 20 million monthly active users, and Kentucky and Pennsylvania are both listed as creditors. Our Character.AI shutting down guide covers what the filing means for your chats.

Our verdict on 2026 is that running costs decided which AI apps survived. Sora reportedly cost OpenAI about US$1 million a day against fewer than 500,000 users, and Huxe closed after Spotify shipped a near-identical feature (Killed by AI, 2026). If an app you depend on is small and expensive to run, download your data this week.

Your data is either deleted after an export window or sold with the business. Which one depends on how the company exits, and the privacy policy you accepted matters more than the farewell email.

Character.AI shows how a sale works. Its privacy policy lets the company disclose certain information in a sale of company assets and does not require a buyer to follow its privacy terms (Straight Arrow News, 2026). US bankruptcy law requires a consumer privacy ombudsman when a sale of personal data would conflict with the policy users were given, and as of October 13, 2026 nobody had asked the court to appoint one. Users can still download their data or delete their accounts, but a public Character can stay active after its creator leaves.

Users lose three things, and an export saves only one of them: the files. The personality goes, as about 800,000 daily GPT-4o users found when OpenAI retired the model from ChatGPT (Killed by AI, 2026). The money goes too: Humane refunded only pins bought in the previous 90 days (TechCrunch, 2025), Moxie buyers got nothing and Wsup AI froze unused credits (Killed by AI, 2026). Our verdict is plain: keep originals on your own devices, download from every app once a quarter, pay monthly instead of buying lifetime deals or big credit bundles, and never buy a device that works only while one startup keeps its servers on. For memory and voice services, read our guides to what happens when a digital legacy company shuts down and who owns your AI twin after you die.

The warning signs usually show up months before the announcement. If you see two or more together, download everything this week.

• Updates stop. HereAfter AI's last iOS update came in September 2023, almost three years before its July 2026 farewell notice (Killed by AI, 2026); our HereAfter AI shutdown coverage has the timeline.

• The team leaves. Microsoft hired Inflection AI's CEO and most of its engineers in March 2024, and Google effectively acqui-hired Character.AI's founders in August 2024 (Killed by AI, 2026).

• Free gets too expensive. Figgs AI closed because keeping its service free cost too much (TechCrunch, 2026).

• Regulators and lawsuits arrive. Kentucky and Pennsylvania sued Character.AI before its bankruptcy, and Woebot Health quit over the cost of FDA requirements (STAT, 2025).

• The pitch changes audience. Eternos moved from family legacies to AI for professionals as it rebranded to Uare.ai (TechCrunch, 2025).

• A bigger platform ships the same feature. Spotify launched a near-identical feature one day before Huxe announced its wind-down (Killed by AI, 2026).

• The hardware needs one startup's cloud. Humane's AI Pin and Moxie stopped working when their servers did.

Export the same day, stop payments within 24 hours, verify backups by day two, then request deletion and follow any court case. Deadlines in this tracker ran from 14 days at Limitless to 30 days at Dot, and HereAfter AI set none before its site went dark.

1. Hour 0: capture the notice. Screenshot the announcement and export instructions and forward the email to a second address, because sites vanish fast.

2. Hour 1: request the full export. Check settings first (Dot's option was "Request your data") and ask for chats, audio, video, photos and transcripts as MP3, MP4 and plain text.

3. Hours 1 to 12: download media directly. Save recordings, videos and photos one by one, and screen-record conversations an export might miss.

4. Hours 12 to 24: stop the money. Cancel renewals where you subscribed (App Store, Google Play or the website), because deleting the app cancels nothing.

5. Hours 12 to 24: dispute card charges. Under the Fair Credit Billing Act, a written dispute for services not delivered as agreed must reach the issuer's billing-inquiries address within 60 days after the first bill showing the charge was sent (Federal Trade Commission, 2022).

6. Hours 24 to 48: verify and back up. Open every file type, play a sample of recordings and keep three copies: two on drives you control and one in a cloud account.

7. Hours 24 to 48: request deletion. Once your copy is safe, ask in writing; under the California Consumer Privacy Act, a business must answer a California resident within 45 calendar days, or 90 with notice (California Attorney General, 2026).

8. Hours 48 to 72: follow the case and share the files. In a bankruptcy, check whether user data is in the sale and whether a consumer privacy ombudsman is appointed, and send family recordings to your siblings now.

Example: an app announces on Monday, October 19, 2026 that it will close in 30 days, the window Dot gave in 2025, so it shuts on November 18. You export that night, cancel the renewal on Tuesday and hold three verified copies by Wednesday. If your annual renewal appeared on a statement sent September 5, your card dispute must reach the issuer by November 4. A California deletion request sent October 20 is owed an answer by December 4, or by January 18, 2027 with the extension.

Yes, because an app holding your stories, voice or face can fail through you or through the company, and a legacy app that plans only for your death has done half the job.

Executor Lock™ is the patent-pending governance layer in Afterlife.ai™. You name your executor and up to 5 Trusted Contacts while you are alive. At verified death your Persona is locked as a perfect snapshot, so nobody can edit, retrain or impersonate you after that, and your family always meets the Persona you approved. Things you leave for people are released after Executor Lock™ activates.

That settles, in advance, the two questions a company sale also raises: who decides, and whether anyone can alter what you built. Ask every vendor, ours included, six questions about the company's own death:

1. What does your privacy policy say happens to my data in a sale, merger or bankruptcy?

2. How do I get a copy of my recordings, and in what file formats?

3. Who besides me can make decisions about my account, and did I name them myself?

4. After I die, can anyone edit or retrain what I built?

5. Am I paying monthly, or have I prepaid years of service?

6. Has the company protected its method, or could a bigger platform copy it in a quarter?

On the last point, Idy®, the company behind Afterlife.ai™, has 78 patents pending, including two international PCT applications filed in August 2026. Our Executor Lock™ page explains how the lock works.

Save everything from the closing app first, then rebuild in your own voice on a platform where you set the rules. On Afterlife.ai™ you build a living AI Persona of yourself from your own memories, stories and voice, so the people you choose can talk with your Persona.

1. Finish the 72-hour protocol so your old files sit safely in three places.

2. Start your free build on iPhone, Android or app.afterlife.ai: 25 memories, no card, never expires, one account in 42 languages.

3. Use your exported files as prompts: play an old recording, then tell that story again in your own words as a memory.

4. Create your voice free so your Persona speaks in your own cloned voice; your first listen is free.

5. Record one 30-second clip for your first Persona Video, also free: a video message of you, in your face and your own voice.

6. Set up Executor Lock™ by naming your executor and up to 5 Trusted Contacts.

7. Upgrade when you want more: Legacy is $14.99 a month and Eternal is $29.99 a month, with every plan on the pricing page.

You must be 18 or older to build a Persona. If you are leaving a closed or troubled service, our StoryFile alternative guide, Character.AI alternative guide, Afterlife.ai™ vs Uare.ai comparison and Replika alternative guide cover the differences.

• Straight Arrow News: Character.AI's bankruptcy leaves millions of users' chats in limbo

• Killed by AI: The tracker of discontinued AI products

• TechCrunch: The AI graveyard, a running list of projects and startups that didn't make it

• 9to5Mac: Rewind and Limitless acquired by Meta

• TechCrunch: Immortality startup Eternos pivots to a personal AI that sounds like you

• TechCrunch: Personalized AI companion app Dot is shutting down

• STAT: Woebot therapy chatbot shuts down as founder says AI is moving faster than regulators

• PYMNTS: Italy fines AI chatbot maker Replika €5 million over privacy violations

• TechCrunch: The fallout of HP's Humane acquisition

• AV Interactive: Conversational AI video pioneer emerges from Chapter 11

• Dazed: What happens when your AI girlfriend dies?

• Federal Trade Commission: Using credit cards and disputing charges

• California Attorney General: California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)