Questions people ask

Duo is a character who remembers what you told them, picks up when you call, and plays a real game with you, in your browser.

It chats, but that is the smallest part. The difference is that a Duo character carries a real memory of you between conversations, can talk out loud on a call, and can sit across a board from you. A chat window forgets you when you close the tab; a Duo character does not.

Adults who want company that remembers: someone to talk to at 2am, someone to call on a walk, someone to play chess with who talks back. Duo is for people 18 and over.

No. Every character is AI. Their words come from language models. They are not people, they hold no credentials, and they are not a substitute for a doctor, a therapist, or a friend who can show up at your door. The AI and safety notice says exactly what that means.

In a modern browser on desktop or phone at playwithduo.com/app. There is nothing to install. A desktop app is on its way for games that need to run on your machine; Minecraft joins first.

Three kinds of things: something to know about you, something you did together, and a preference of yours. Each is a short line the character wrote down after a conversation, and every one of them is listed in the app.

Yes. Open a character's memory panel to read every entry. Pin the ones that matter, forget the ones that don't, or delete all of them. A forgotten memory stops affecting conversations immediately.

Never. Memory is scoped to you. When you talk to a character someone else published, what it learns about you stays with your account and is invisible to the author and to everyone else.

Yes. A call, a chat, and a game with the same character all live in one conversation, so a character can bring up on a call what you typed last week, or remember how a chess game went.

No. Not ours, not our providers'. Messages go to a model only to write the reply you asked for, and we set our providers not to retain or train on them where they offer that control. Details are in the privacy policy.

Press the phone button on any character. Your microphone opens, you talk, and the character answers out loud in their own voice. You can talk over them; they stop, wait, and pick the thread back up.

Today, a few seconds after you stop talking. We measure it on every turn and are rebuilding the voice path to answer in about a second; that work is the current focus of the beta.

If you share it, yes. On a call you can share a window or your screen, and the character glances at it when you speak, so "what do you think of this?" gets an answer about the thing on your screen.

Your microphone audio is sent for transcription and the transcript is kept as part of the conversation, like a typed message. The raw audio is not kept after the turn is handled.

The first call in a browser downloads the on-device speech detector (about 15 MB) so Duo can tell your voice from background noise without sending everything to a server. It is cached after that.

Current Chrome, Edge, Safari, and Firefox on desktop; Safari and Chrome on phones. Calls need microphone permission, and on iPhone the first reply may need a tap to start the sound.

Chess by Duo, in a 3D park or on a plain board, at any strength from beginner to club level, with a character who talks while they play. Battleship by Duo is next.

They actually play. The moves come from a real chess engine at the strength you chose, and the talk comes from the character reacting to what is happening on the board: a capture, a check, a blunder, a long think.

Games that run on your computer need the desktop app, which is on its way. Minecraft joins first. Roblox, Stardew Valley, and Call of Duty: Zombies are on the roadmap in that order of likelihood. Game names and artwork belong to their owners and only mark planned compatibility.

Yes. A game in progress is saved and waits for you under Games. You can also step back through the move list afterwards.

Playing draws on the same hours as voice: the free plan includes an hour to try, Duo Plus includes 15 hours a month, Duo Ultra 45. Text chat never counts.

Yes. The studio takes a name, a persona, a greeting, example lines, and tags, and can paint a portrait from your description. The free plan includes five characters of your own; paid plans have no limit.

The shelf of characters other people have published. It is curated to the interests you picked when you joined, with a "For you" row first and genre rows after it.

Yes, as public or unlisted. Published characters must follow the content policy. Whoever talks to your character gets their own private memory with it; you never see their conversations.

On paid plans, yes. Each character can be given a voice, and that is the voice you hear on calls and when a reply is read out loud.

Group chats come with Duo Plus. Set the scene, add the characters, and they take turns.

Unlimited messages forever, five characters of your own, every community character, and one hour of voice and co-op play to try. No card, no clock.

Duo Plus ($9.99 a month, or $99.99 a year) adds unlimited characters, 15 hours of voice and co-op a month, group chats, and characters with their own voices. Duo Ultra ($29.99 a month, or $299.99 a year) raises that to 45 hours, with first access to new games and priority when it is busy.

An hour is measured while a call or a game is live. Reading, typing, and thinking do not count. Monthly hours refill on your billing date; the free hour is one-time.

Settings, then Plan, then Manage subscription. Cancelling stops the next renewal; you keep everything through the period you have paid for. Paid plans renew automatically until then.

Where the law gives you a refund right or a cooling-off period, it applies. Outside that, payments are generally non-refundable, but if something went wrong, write to us and we will look at it in good faith.

Stripe. We never see your card details.

No. Duo is for adults 18 and over, and companion chatbots may not be suitable for some minors. We ask for a date of birth at sign-up and close accounts we believe belong to minors.

Every character carries a standing instruction that overrides its persona: step out of character, say plainly that it is an AI and that it cares what happens to you, and share crisis resources. In the United States, call or text 988. The AI and safety notice has the details.

Your account, your characters, your conversations and memories, images you add, and the usage that measures your plan. Voice audio is not kept after the turn. The privacy policy lists every category, every processor, and how long each is kept.

Yes, yourself, from Settings. One action removes your account, characters, conversations, memories, and images.

No ads, no third-party trackers, no cookie banner because there is nothing to opt out of. We do not sell or share personal information.

Romantic themes can arise in conversation, but explicit sexual content is not part of Duo. An adult, opt-in register is designed and switched off until its age assurance is complete. Sexual content involving minors is banned absolutely, everywhere, with no setting that changes it.

Voice and games are the expensive, fragile parts, and we would rather let people in a few at a time and keep every call good than open the doors and have the first impression be a slow one.

We let in a batch every week or two. You get exactly one email when it's your turn, nothing else.

Honest answer: calls will sometimes answer slower than we like, a game might need a refresh, and features will move. Memory, your data, and billing are treated as production from day one.

playwithduo.com/app.

Yes, and we would love that. Publish through the studio, or write to us if you have a catalogue, a world, or a voice in mind. Creator tools (better publishing, profiles, and stats) are on the roadmap.

That is exactly the kind of thing the contact form at the bottom of the front page is for. Tell us the audience and the idea; we will tell you what Duo can do today and what is coming.

Not yet. The beta has no revenue share. We will not launch one without telling creators the terms first.

Write to hello@playwithduo.com with "press" in the subject.