Blog

Multiple user personas, games, and more Companions

14 September 2026

It's been some time since our last update here, and it's been good. We've reached over 10,000 signups just 4 months since Embraces started. This update, we've added multiple user personas, increased Companion limits, added our first game to chat, and improved chat edit functionality. Let's dive right in.

SillyTavern vs Embraces AI (2026): Which One Is Right for You?

31 August 2026

SillyTavern comes up almost every time someone goes looking for a way out of paying a subscription, and it has earned that reputation. It is free, it is open source, it is configurable down to a level most products would never expose, and the community around it has built extensions no company would have got approval to ship. We think highly of it and this comparison is not going to pretend otherwise.

What it is not is a product you can sign up for. You install it on a machine you own and point it at a language model you supply yourself, and that detail is what sends most people looking for something else eventually. It is also the detail worth understanding properly before you decide whether the something else ought to be us.

Chat Themes Are Live: Meet Yume

29 August 2026

Chat themes are live on Embraces, and the first one is called Yume. It comes with every paid plan.

Why Do AI Roleplay Platforms Cost So Much?

27 August 2026

Last week someone asked us, in so many words, why AI roleplay platforms cost so much. The same question hangs over AI character apps and AI companion apps too, and the economics underneath are much the same, so consider this an answer for the whole category. It is a fair question that tends to get answered with a shrug, which probably makes the prices feel worse than an honest breakdown would. So here is the honest breakdown, including the parts that are awkward for us.

Website revamp, outreach times, pinned messages

25 August 2026

We've rebuilt our website from the ground up! The app behind it stays the same, but the website has gotten a long overdue polishing. Inside the app, you can now pin the messages and photos worth keeping, set the hours your companion is allowed to text you, and give yourself a backstory of your own.

Voice calls, message regeneration, and more

13 August 2026

Voice calls are finally here! You can ring up your Companion and talk to them with the voices you've set in your Bio. This is a huge mid-August update with calls, new voices, and message regeneration, with a couple spiffy updates to our app's user interface. Let's get started.

Embraces Gets a Fresh New Look, and Memories for Everyone

6 August 2026

We spent the last two weeks with our heads down in the app itself, and we are really pleased with how it has come out. Embraces finally looks and moves like the chat app we always wanted it to be, memories are out of testing and switched on for everyone, and there is a whole pile of smaller fixes tucked in behind that.

Cute Couple Pictures, More Companion Slots, and Adjustable Check-Ins

27 July 2026

Ten days ago we told you July was a quiet month about languages and photo galleries. We're cooking up some exciting stuff that we're excited to announce in the coming week (hint: memories, voice calls). But let's take a look at what we've shipped in the last week.

16 July 2026

This past stretch was less about big new features and more about reach: making the app feel like it was built in your language, and giving you better ways to look back over everything you and your companion have shared.

Voiceovers Are Live: Hear Your AI Companion Speak

5 July 2026

Last month we said voiceovers were the thing we were most excited about. They're here. Now you can hear your Embraces AI companion out loud: tap any text message they send and you'll hear it read back aloud, in a voice that's their own.

Selfies Can Go Anywhere Now, and a Smarter Paywall

26 June 2026

This month was less about big new toys and more about work on bug fixes and stability. The kind of stuff that doesn't make a headline but adds up to a noticeably better texting experience.

Wefies Are Live: Couple Photos With Your AI Companion

12 June 2026

A couple of weeks back we shipped selfies, where you describe a scene and your Companion sends back a photo of themselves in it. Our next thought: what if we could have Companion selfies include the user? Well, wefies are now live, and you can take your companion out on dates!

ProjectSylvie Is Now Embraces AI: Our Rebrand

10 June 2026

If you've been following us for a while now, you'll have known us as ProjectSylvie. We've decided to rebrand to Embraces AI, reflecting our vision of AI companionship feeling like a warm embrace (cheesy, we know). The past three weeks have been the most productive stretch in our history, and we want to pull back the curtain on what shipped and why.

Companion Selfies, and Listening to Our Early Users

30 May 2026

We're coming close to the end of the month now, and we've been hard at work figuring out what features we must prioritize, what our ideal user flows should look like, and how to reach out to more early users.

What Do You Want From an AI Companion?

19 May 2026

I'm sure we've all been there: Character.ai, Janitor AI, Kindroid, etc.. We've all looked for something that has what we want, and come up empty. At Embraces, we shared that very experience. That's why we wanted to come up with our own take on the idea.