Character.AI's 30 October Court Hearing: What It Decides and What to Do That Week

Adults only. The backup-account box near the end of this guide names companion apps built for adults. Everything else applies to any Character.AI user. The guide is non-explicit.

How this guide was made. This is a documentation-based guide. It relies on Character.AI’s blog and help centre, the notice of commencement the company filed with the court on 15 October 2026, the public case site run by its claims agent, and news reports that quote the court filings, all read on 19 and 20 October 2026. Dates described as “proposed” have been requested by the company and were not approved when we checked. We are not lawyers, and nothing here is legal advice.

Why one hearing has a subreddit counting days

“Any news on the bankruptcy yet?” was a top post on r/CharacterAI on 19 October, and the answer was no, because the next official event is still ten days away. One long post counted “33 to 53 odd days until the deadline”. Another, written as day two of trying to calm people down, made the only point that matters: nothing is decided until there is an official announcement.

That event is a hearing in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware on Thursday 30 October 2026 at 10:00 ET. Knowing what will and will not be settled that morning stops a court order about auction paperwork being read as a verdict on the app. For the filing itself, see our guide to what the sale means for your chats, data and subscription. This guide covers the week around the hearing.

What the 30 October hearing is

Character Technologies, Inc. filed its Chapter 11 petition on 12 October 2026, case number 26-11603 (BLS), before Judge Brendan Linehan Shannon. According to the Elevenflo case tracker, updated 19 October, the court has set a hearing for 30 October 2026 at 10:00 ET in Courtroom 1 at 824 Market Street, Wilmington, on docket entry 50: the company’s motion for bidding procedures, bid protections, and the designation of Disney Worldwide Services, Inc. as stalking horse.

In plain language:

• Bidding procedures are the rules of the auction: who may bid, by when, in what form, and when the auction and sale hearing happen.
• The stalking horse is the opening bidder whose offer sets the floor. Disney has offered $20 million for a non-exclusive, perpetual licence to certain intellectual property and claims.
• Bid protections are what the stalking horse is paid if outbid. PPC Land’s reading of the agreement on 13 October puts the break-up fee at $700,000 and says a rival bid must reach $21.7 million (Disney’s $20 million plus the fee plus $1 million) to count.

That is the whole agenda. If the judge approves the motion, the company has a timetable it can run. If the judge changes it, the dates below move.

What the hearing cannot decide

The company’s blog says the platform “remains up and running” and “will be wound down” only if no bid “provides for the platform to continue”. None of that changes on 30 October.

Objections were due 23 October

The Elevenflo tracker lists 23 October 2026 as the objection deadline for the motion. That is the first point at which anyone could push back on the auction rules in writing. What has been filed so far, as reported:

• On 14 October, a group of state attorneys general filed a notice in the case. KQED counted 39 states and the District of Columbia and said it set out nine conditions for any buyer. Reuters, via Insurance Journal, counted 40 attorneys general.
• On 15 October, California’s attorney general announced a second notice joined by 22 other states, asking the court “to address privacy and safety concerns in any sale or transfer of the company’s business or assets”. The release calls it a notice, not an objection, and says the states reserved their rights to challenge any proposed sale or plan.
• At the first hearing, the states’ lawyer, Abigail Ryan, said the states were “willing to work with the buyers to find safeguards” but did not want past problems to “start over with a new purchaser”. The company’s lawyer, Erin Fay, said “no buyer has yet made an offer for the company’s user data or its operating chatbot business”.

Two things follow. The people with standing to shape what a buyer must do with chats are the states, and they have put down a marker without yet objecting. And as of mid-October, nobody had bid for the part of the company you actually use. Notebookcheck, citing Straight Arrow News, reported that as of 13 October nobody had asked the court for a consumer privacy ombudsman, the officer bankruptcy law provides when a sale of personal data would conflict with a company’s privacy policy.

What Disney is buying, and what it is not

Most “Disney is buying c.ai” posts get this wrong. PPC Land’s 13 October report, based on the agreement filed with the court, says Disney’s $20 million buys a licence to the code for the training, safety and serving systems plus nine patents. It says the agreement leaves in the estate: the app and its consumer-facing applications, the brand and trademarks, the domains, user data, chats and inputs, training data, and the finished models. Notebookcheck quotes the agreement as excluding “end user data or databases” and “any input entered by Licensor end users”.

Separately, Gizmodo reported on 19 October that Disney is seeking to hire 66 Character.AI employees at about $60 million a year for three years.

So the licence does not keep the app running and does not take your chats. For the platform to continue, a second bidder has to appear for the platform itself, and the hearing sets the deadline by which that bidder must show up. One agreement term, as PPC Land reports it, explains why the date matters: Disney may terminate if the bidding procedures order is not entered within 21 days of the petition, which is 2 November 2026, or if the sale order is not entered by 30 November 2026. A hearing on 30 October leaves three days before the first trigger.

The dates after 30 October

The notice of commencement, docket 54, is the one official document in that list aimed at people outside the company. It gives the creditors’ meeting date and points to the Stretto case site for every filing. It says nothing about users. PPC Land reports that the company told the court it does not regard its roughly 163 million current and past users as creditors entitled to notice, and that emailing them would be “cost-prohibitive”. Notice goes to the blog, the case site and in-app links instead.

What to do in the week of 26 October

Before the weekend of 25 October

1. Request the data export if you have not. Web: Profile, then Profile Settings, then Account, then Manage Account & Data, then Export Data. App: Profile, then the Settings icon, then Legal & Privacy, then Export Data. The help centre says 3 to 4 weeks, and the link lasts 7 days. A request made on 20 October lands between about 10 and 17 November, before the proposed bid deadline. Our guide to the export file itself explains what to expect.
2. Copy your character definitions, personas and pinned memories into a text file. The export is slow; this is instant.
3. Check the inbox on your account, including spam, if you requested the export around 12 or 13 October. Three weeks from then is 2 to 3 November; a missed email is a missed 7-day window.

Monday 27 to Wednesday 29 October

4. Decide the subscription. The blog says subscriptions remain active and billing is unchanged “for now”, with advance notice promised before paid features change. If you pay annually, note the renewal date; monthly is easier to leave. Cancel where you bought. Our guide to cancelling an AI subscription has each route.
5. Bookmark the Character.AI blog and the Stretto case site. Those are the only places the company has said it will post.

Thursday 30 October

6. Do not expect a verdict on the app. The result of the hearing is an order about auction rules, which usually appears on the docket within days rather than during the hearing. A screenshot saying the judge “saved” or “shut down” c.ai on 30 October is almost certainly a misreading.
7. Check one thing afterwards: whether the bid deadline stays at 20 November. If the court changes it, every date above moves with it. Our Character.AI changes log will record what is confirmed.

Friday 31 October to Sunday 2 November

8. Look for the signed order. Under the agreement as reported, 2 November is the day Disney could walk away if there is no bidding procedures order. Once it is entered, the timetable is live.

Rumours to ignore this week

• “Chats are deleted 15 days after the sale.” A Reddit post on 19 October traced this to an X user commenting under a poll attributed to Chai’s chief executive, and said the commenter did not appear to be from either company. We could not find the poll or any statement from Chai, and nothing from Character.AI or the court says it.
• “Chai is buying it.” No bid for the platform had been made as of 14 October, according to the company’s own lawyer. A real bid will appear on the case site, not in a poll.
• “The app shuts down on [date].” No date exists. The platform runs while the sale proceeds and is wound down only if no bid keeps it going.
• “A new owner has to keep the current terms.” Terms are set by whoever operates the service. A buyer can publish new ones.

If the week gets heavy

Several of the week’s most upvoted posts were people saying the uncertainty was hurting them. Character.AI’s help centre has a page, “Resources You Can Turn To”, that links to a short guided conversation, a nonprofit’s wellbeing courses, and helplines reachable by chat, text, WhatsApp or phone. If a chat app has been a daily comfort, the possibility of losing it is a real loss, and talking to someone you trust about it is a sensible step, not an overreaction.

Plan B without leaving

A second account that already holds one of your characters means a wind-down would not catch you empty-handed.

If you want the community-library model closest to Character.AI’s, CrushOn AI rates every character (Filtered, Unfiltered or 18+) and SpicyChat publishes its memory sizes by tier. Both are for adults, and neither has free unlimited text. Our guide to switching from Character.AI compares the options by need, and the companion matcher leaves out any app that does not fit your age or filter settings.

What we could not confirm

• Whether any party filed an objection by 23 October. The docket table on the Stretto site did not render for us on 20 October, and the tracker we used shows entries only on a paid tier.
• Whether the 30 October hearing has remote access. The notice we saw gives a courtroom address only.
• The exact conditions in the states’ notices. KQED reports nine; the California release does not list them.
• How KQED’s “17 December closing deadline” fits with the company’s “end of November or perhaps early December”.
• Whether a consumer privacy ombudsman has been requested since 13 October.

For how we source and date guides like this, see how AITried reviews AI products. For the wider month, see the October 2026 news roundup.