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In Florida, a 12-year-old boy spent two weeks in grief after Character.AI deleted the fictional character he'd talked to every day for eight months. He didn't know it in person. It had no real name. But for that boy it was a daily presence more consistent than any real-life friend.

That shift matters. For years, the AI industry competed over who could write better text, answer faster or generate more eye-catching images. Now the battle is moving somewhere else: which model can actually help users complete valuable tasks with fewer mistakes and less supervision.