The platform lets brands give their characters a voice, memory, and personality to build trusted relationships across social media and the web.
“AI characters create a new way for brands to engage fans, turning brand characters into trusted companions that build relationships at scale.” — Anton Umnov, Founder & CEO, Helika
MONTREAL, QC, June 22, 2026 /24-7PressRelease/ — Helika today launched Helika Evolve, a platform that lets brands bring their recognizable characters to life with AI and give fans a personalized point of contact across the channels they already use. Evolve turns a brand’s mascot into an interactive persona that talks with fans, remembers them, and builds the relationship that earns trust at scale.
Customers buy from brands they trust, and trust forms over time through interaction and experience. Advertising buys attention. It does not build the connection that earns trust. Helika Evolve gives brands a way to earn it in conversation.
Evolve lets brands give their characters a tailored voice, mannerisms, and knowledge base that carry the brand’s values while staying fun to talk to. These characters meet fans where they are, on a company website, Discord, X, or another social network, and respond to what fans need. In place of a mechanical question-and-answer bot, each persona shows emotion, holds opinions, keeps memory, and builds a real relationship with customers.
Characters shape brand perception and conversion. Campaigns built around a character have been 37 percent more likely to grow market share and 30 percent more likely to grow profit, according to System1 and the IPA. A mascot that recurs over the years performs better still: those campaigns have been 73 percent more likely to post a major rise in profit, per the IPA.
Fans tune out ads. In place of meeting that fatigue with more ads, characters reach fans through conversation. Nielsen found that 92 percent of consumers trust a recommendation from someone they know over advertising, and Edelman found that 84 percent say a personal recommendation shapes what they buy. A character that becomes a fan’s companion can give advice in place of a sales pitch.
Brands stay in control as characters live across these channels. Every part of a personality can be adjusted in real time. Knowledge, memory, and scope stay flexible. Guardrails set the limits of what a character can say and what it can interact with, and each brand chooses how its characters handle conflict. Brand safety sits at the foundation of the platform.
With that control in place, Evolve carries the full relationship. The character greets each new fan, learns what brought them in, and points them to what they came for. It stays present long after the first hello, reaches out to fans who go quiet, picks up past threads, and gives regulars a reason to return. Every exchange feeds insights back to the brand: which topics a community cares about, how sentiment moves, and which conversations turn into action.
Helika tested Evolve in live communities. Fans moved past first-time curiosity into repeat conversation. They came back, picked up where they left off, and stayed long after the opening exchange. The pilot confirmed the idea behind the product: fans form a lasting relationship with a character that can engage with them.
“Interactive AI characters represent a new category of fan engagement,” said Anton Umnov, founder and CEO of Helika. “Brands have spent years building recognition through mascots and characters. Helika transforms those characters into intelligent AI companions that can engage audiences, manage communities, and build trusted relationships at scale.”
Helika is an AI character platform that helps brands and IP owners create interactive AI characters that engage audiences across websites, social media, and online communities. Founded three years ago in North America, the company serves more than 60 studios, including Nexon, Ubisoft, Yuga Labs, and Com2Us, and has co-designed projects with Ubisoft. Helika has raised $15M from investors including Sagard, Pantera Capital, Animoca Brands, Fenbushi Capital, and Big Brain Holdings.
Website: https://www.helika.io
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