Welcome to the rise of Grok Valentine and Ani, the newest AI companions from Elon Musk’s xAI—two digital entities that have taken Japan by storm and are quietly reshaping the global emotional landscape.

One of the new “companions,” or AI characters for users to interact with, is a sexualized blonde anime bot called “Ani."

AI’s new $300 monthly subscription comes with two AI companions powered by its most capable model to date. I tried them. It got weird.

Musk’s approach to pitching Ani and his other AI companion, Rudi, a storytelling cartoon fox that can be switched to “bad” mode and urge you to burn down a school, is more in keeping with his juvenile sense of humour. He described the companions as “pretty cool” and replied to user comments about them with a laughing emoji.

Musk's AI chatbot Ani flirts with users, raising safety and age concerns.AI companions exploit loneliness, using emotional manipulation to hook users

A week after Elon Musk’s AI tool Grok descended into antisemitic rants and declared itself “MechaHitler,” the social media platform X is back with new AI-controlled chatbots for paid subscribers to “SuperGrok.

One of the weirder bits of news on the AI-front has been Elon Musk's rollout of sexually-charged animated chat bots. Officially called "companions," and unofficially "waifus," a Japanese term for romantic-partner or wife,

Alex and Ani partnered with Hot Wheels on a new, limited-edition jewelry collection. The jewelry company and Mattel brand embrace nostalgia and sentimentality, with new charms, jewelry pieces and more in the collaborative collection launching on Monday via Alex and Ani’s official website.

The excavations uncover the long-buried remnants of Seljuk-era architecture and trade, as experts work to preserve the site’s historical legacy