ZeroWeight AI

Blog

Model releases, engineering notes and product updates from the team building real-time AI characters, and the open speech models underneath them.

Guide12 October 2026 · 10 min read

Grok Ani Is Gone: The Best Animated AI Companions That Talk Back (2026)

Grok's 3D companions, Ani included, were removed in September 2026. Here's what happened, where Ani went, and the best animated AI companions that still talk back with a face and a voice.

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Guide · 11 October 2026

Best Character.AI Alternatives in 2026 (Tested & Compared)

Locked out by Character.AI's face scan, or tired of text-only bots? Compare the best Character.AI alternatives in 2026, including companions that animate and talk back in real time.

9 min read

Product · 6 October 2026

Waifu Agent: an anime AI companion for Chrome that chats, sees your screen and does web tasks

Waifu Agent is a free Chrome extension that gives your browser an anime AI companion. Talk to her by voice or text, ask about the page you are on, and let her search, click and fill in forms for you.

6 min read

Model release · 19 August 2026

ZeroTTS: Vietnamese speech that starts talking in 70 milliseconds

An open 202M-parameter zero-shot text-to-speech model for Vietnamese, built for real-time voice agents. It streams from a laptop CPU without trading away the prosody that lightweight TTS usually gives up.

9 min read

Open source on GitHubThe models and runtimes we write about, in full.Walkthroughs on YouTubeBuilds and tutorials, if you would rather watch it happen.