Google buys Character AI for more than $2.5 billion and rounds up the team as the latter's valuation shrinks

(BPT) - AI digital human unicorn company Character.AI announced that Google has paid model licensing fees with Character.AI and will allow Character.AI co-founder and CEO Norm Schatzel and President Daniel DeFreitas, as well as Character's working on model training and speech AI employees (30 of about 130) to join Google for the Gemini AI program. Character.AI's management reportedly told employees Friday that investors' stock would be acquired at a valuation of about $88 per share. Google's overall acquisition of Character.AI will be worth more than $2.5 billion.