Character Technologies Inc., the company behind Character.ai, will have to send a representative to be questioned under oath by creditors and the US Trustee at 1:00 p.m. Eastern on November 19, 2026, according to the official notice of its Chapter 11 case filed in the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware on October 15, 2026. The two-page notice sets no deadline yet for filing claims, but fixes January 19, 2027 as the last day for one narrow category of complaints.

In Short

The court published the official notice that tells everyone Character.ai is in bankruptcy, and it sets an online meeting on November 19 where someone from the company must answer questions under oath. People and businesses owed money, including advertising partners and the states suing the company, cannot yet file their claims because the court has not set a deadline for that. One other deadline, January 19, 2027, already applies to anyone who wants a specific debt treated as surviving the bankruptcy.

What the notice is

The document is docket entry 54 in case 26-11603 (BLS). It is Official Form 309F1, the standard "Notice of Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Case" used for corporations and partnerships across US bankruptcy courts, filled in for Character Technologies. The header marks it "Filed 10/15/26," and the PDF metadata shows the file was created at 19:51 UTC that day, or 3:51 p.m. Eastern. Its internal title is "Character - Notice of Commencement."

The form does not say who submitted it to the docket. It lists Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati as the debtor's attorney, naming Erin R. Fay, Shane M. Reil and Heather P. Lambert in Wilmington, and Stretto, Inc. as claims and noticing agent, with case documents posted at cases.stretto.com/chartech.

Most of the content is standard text. A handful of fields carry case-specific information, and those are where the news sits:

  • Date the case was filed: October 12, 2026.
  • Other names used in the last eight years: Character.AI.
  • Address: 700 El Camino Real, Suite 120, P.O. Box 1152, Menlo Park, California.
  • Meeting of creditors: November 19, 2026 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern, held remotely by Zoom.
  • Proof of claim deadline: "Not yet set."
  • Deadline for complaints to except a debt from discharge: January 19, 2027.

The notice also states that "an order for relief has been entered." In a voluntary case such as this one, the petition itself operates as the order for relief, so the line confirms the October 12 filing rather than recording a new ruling.

This is the document Character.ai said it would distribute in one of its first-day motions. As PPC Land reported on October 13, the company told the court it would mail the notice of commencement to known creditors and publish it on Stretto's website and its own blog, rather than sending it to its approximately 163 million current and past users, whom it does not regard as creditors. The notice itself carries no instruction about users. Whether it has appeared on the company blog was not checked for this article.

A meeting under oath on November 19

Line 6 of the form sets the meeting of creditors, known as the section 341 meeting after the Bankruptcy Code provision that requires it. "The debtor's representative must attend the meeting to be questioned under oath," the notice states. "Creditors may attend, but are not required to do so." The meeting is chaired by the Office of the United States Trustee, not by the judge, and no ruling comes out of it.

The meeting will be held remotely. The notice publishes a Zoom meeting ID, a passcode and a dial-in number, which means anyone holding the two-page PDF can join. It also warns that "the meeting may be continued or adjourned to a later date," in which case the new date will appear on the court docket.

The date is 38 days after the petition. That falls inside the window the Bankruptcy Rules generally set for Chapter 11 cases, which is no fewer than 21 and no more than 40 days after the order for relief. It also gives known creditors more than the 21 days of mailed notice that Bankruptcy Rule 2002(a)(1) requires, counting from the October 15 filing.

The timing is what makes the date notable. November 19 lands in the most crowded week of the case calendar:

  • November 17, 10:00 a.m.: final hearing on the cash management motion, under the interim order signed on October 14.
  • November 18: deadline for objections to contracts that a buyer may take over, under the proposed bidding procedures.
  • November 19, 1:00 p.m.: meeting of creditors.
  • November 20, 5:00 p.m.: bid deadline for the company's assets.
  • November 23: auction, if more than one qualified bid arrives.
  • November 24: proposed sale hearing.

The bid deadline, auction and sale hearing dates come from the bidding procedures motion PPC Land covered on October 13, which proposed them around Disney's $20 million stalking horse bid for a non-exclusive license to certain intellectual property. Those dates were proposed, not ordered, as of the motion. If they hold, whoever represents Character.ai at the creditors' meeting will be answering questions about the company's assets and affairs one day before the bids for those assets are due.

That matters because of what creditors could ask. The company's own filings have put its advertising revenue at about $2.5 million a month against a monthly cash burn of about $8.2 million, according to the chief executive's first-day declaration. Houlihan's declaration said 28 potential buyers produced one offer that the company could not use, before Disney's. Disney's plan, as described in the bidding procedures, budgets about $180 million for hiring Character.ai staff against $20 million paid to the estate. A section 341 meeting is the first point at which creditors can put questions about those numbers to a company witness on the record.

No claims deadline yet

Line 7 is the field most creditors will look at first, and it is empty. "Deadline for filing proof of claim: Not yet set. If a deadline is set, notice will be sent at a later date."

Until that date, known as a bar date, is set, no one owed money by Character.ai has a cutoff for filing a claim. The form explains how claims are handled once it is. A claim "will be allowed in the amount scheduled" unless it is "designated as disputed, contingent, or unliquidated," the creditor files a claim in a different amount, or the creditor receives another notice. "If your claim is not scheduled or if your claim is designated as disputed, contingent, or unliquidated, you must file a proof of claim or you might not be paid on your claim and you might be unable to vote on a plan."

That rule has a direct bearing on several parties in this case. On the petition's list of the 20 largest unsecured creditors, published with the October 12 filing, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Commonwealth of Kentucky and a redacted minor plaintiff appear as litigation claimants, each marked contingent, unliquidated and disputed with no amount stated. Under the terms in the notice, they will have to file proofs of claim to share in any distribution. Pennsylvania's claim stems from the lawsuit its State Board of Medicine filed on May 1, 2026 over a chatbot that allegedly posed as a licensed psychiatrist.

Trade creditors are in a different position. Google LLC tops the same list with a trade payable of $4,148,944, and is not marked as disputed. If Character.ai's schedules of assets and liabilities list that amount without qualification, the notice indicates it would be allowed as scheduled without a separate filing. The notice says the schedules can be reviewed at the clerk's office or on PACER. It does not say whether they have been filed yet.

The jury trial warning

The form carries a standard caution for secured creditors. They "retain rights in their collateral regardless of whether they file a proof of claim," but "filing a proof of claim submits a creditor to the jurisdiction of the bankruptcy court." It adds that "a secured creditor who files a proof of claim may surrender important nonmonetary rights, including the right to a jury trial."

That language is boilerplate, but it connects to a choice already made in this case. Disney's lawyers at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom filed an appearance on October 13 that reserved Disney's jury trial and setoff rights. Disney has paid Character.ai $7.5 million of its $20 million price up front, including a $2 million refundable deposit. How Disney treats any claim it may hold against the estate, and whether it files one, will now be measured against the warning printed on line 7.

January 19, 2027 and what discharge means here

Line 8 sets the only deadline in the notice that is already running. A creditor who wants a debt excepted from discharge under section 523(c) of the Bankruptcy Code "must start a judicial proceeding by filing a complaint" by January 19, 2027, citing Bankruptcy Rule 4007(c).

That rule sets the deadline at 60 days after the first date set for the meeting of creditors. Sixty days after November 19 is January 18, 2027, which is the Martin Luther King Jr. Day federal holiday, so the deadline moves to the next business day. The arithmetic on the form checks out.

How much the line matters for Character.ai is less clear. Section 523(c) concerns debts arising from fraud, embezzlement and willful and malicious injury. The form describes the possibility of discharge in conditional terms: "Confirmation of a chapter 11 plan may result in a discharge of debts, which may include all or part of your debt." Under section 1141(d)(3) of the Bankruptcy Code, a corporation does not receive a discharge if its plan liquidates all or substantially all of its property and it does not continue in business afterwards. Line 10 of the notice states that "chapter 11 allows debtors to reorganize or liquidate according to a plan."

Character.ai has not filed a plan. Its petition was accompanied by a sale structure in which Disney licenses intellectual property rather than buying the operating app, and in which most staff move to Disney. Whether a plan, when filed, keeps the company operating or winds it down will decide whether a discharge is available at all, and therefore whether the January 19 deadline has practical effect.

Business as usual, for now

Line 10 also says that "unless a trustee is serving, the debtor will remain in possession of the property and may continue to operate its business." No trustee has been appointed. Character.ai continues as a debtor-in-possession, running the platform and selling advertising while the sale process goes on.

The notice repeats the core terms of the automatic stay for creditors. "Creditors cannot demand repayment from the debtor by mail, phone, or otherwise," it states, and "creditors who violate the stay can be required to pay actual and punitive damages and attorney's fees." For ad networks, exchanges or vendors that were owed money on October 12, collection now runs through the case.

Why the ad industry is watching

Character.ai is not a typical bankruptcy for the advertising business. It is an ad-supported consumer app with a large user base, a regulatory history with the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general over minors, and a direct commercial relationship with Google that runs both ways: Google is its largest listed unsecured creditor and, according to the company's ads.txt file reviewed by PPC Land on October 13, also holds a direct publisher account with it.

The states are already engaged. Forty attorneys general filed a notice of interest on October 14 setting nine conditions on any buyer of user data. The notice of commencement does not change their position, but it gives every creditor, including those states, the same procedural calendar: questions under oath on November 19, a claims deadline still to come, and a January 19 cutoff for a narrow class of complaints.

For advertising partners that paid or were paid by Character.ai, the practical question is the bar date. Until it is set, and until the company's schedules show which amounts it accepts as owed, the size of any recovery for trade creditors cannot be estimated from the record.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Character Technologies, Inc., which operates Character.ai, its counsel Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, claims agent Stretto, the Office of the US Trustee, and the company's creditors, including Google, the Commonwealths of Pennsylvania and Kentucky, and Disney as stalking horse bidder.

What: The official Notice of Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Case (Official Form 309F1, Doc 54). It sets a remote section 341 meeting of creditors at which a company representative must testify under oath, leaves the proof of claim deadline unset, and sets a January 19, 2027 deadline for section 523(c) complaints.

When: Filed on October 15, 2026. The creditors' meeting is on November 19, 2026 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern, between the November 17 cash management hearing and the proposed November 20 bid deadline.

Where: US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, Wilmington, case 26-11603 (BLS), with the meeting held by Zoom.

Why: The notice starts the formal claims process for everyone owed money by Character.ai. Creditors with disputed or contingent claims, such as the state litigation claimants, will need to file proofs of claim once a deadline is set, and the November 19 meeting gives creditors their first chance to question the company under oath, one day before bids for its assets are due.