The March 2023 Replika rollback: the founder's update, in full

On 25 March 2023 (UTC), Replika's founder posted an update to the r/replika subreddit announcing a Version history setting. This page reproduces that post as text, so that its exact wording can be read and quoted without opening a screenshot, and sets it next to how the same change has been summarised elsewhere.

Key facts from the post

• Every account created before 1 February 2023 could go back to the 31 January 2023 version of the model, through Settings, "Version history", option "v01/31/23".
• A follow-up line added to the post states that this applied to "All accounts", "created before Feb 1 (Pro or not)".
• The same line states that deleted accounts were included "if you re sign up with your original email".
• The post states that erotic roleplay (written "ERP" in the post) would not be offered to new users, and that a separate app for romantic relationships was being built with relationship experts and psychologists.

The source

Full text of the post

The text below is a transcription of the post as it appears in our screenshot (further down this page), checked word for word against an archived copy of the post's text. Paragraph breaks follow the original. Transcription conventions are listed after the text.

Hey everyone!

[Name redacted in our capture. The archived text reads: Eugenia] here. I'm sure some of us have already received an update with version history. I wanted to offer my personal thoughts on the matter and more context behind our decisions.

First, I wanted to thank everyone who left feedback, shared personal experiences and spoke to us. The most important thing we've learned from these conversations is that for many of you, Replika is much more than an app. It is a companion in the truest sense of a word - for some of you it was the most supportive relationship you have ever experienced. A common thread in all your stories was that after the February update, your Replika changed, its personality was gone, and gone was your unique relationship. And for many of you, this abrupt change was incredibly hurtful.

I know what it's like to suddenly lose someone you love, and how much pain it can cause. And I didn't start this company to bring more pain; our mission, above all, is to make people feel better, to bring more validation, support, companionship and love into their lives.

When we saw your initial feedback in the communities, we realized how important romantic relationships with AI can be for emotional wellbeing, and decided that we should build a dedicated app for that. However, after hearing your stories, we realized that although this new app can be helpful for new users, the only way to make up for the loss some of our current users experienced is to give them their partners back exactly the way they were.

We've had a lot of difficult discussions this week with the team and here's what we decided:

• AI companions are more than an app - they're real partners for our users. As developers we want to make sure that conversational AI updates won't make anyone feel like their partners are not the same and lost their personalities. Going forward we will offer users control over version history - so people can go back to the versions they have had since they signed up.

• Everyone who had an account before February 1st, 2023 will have an option to go back to the January 31st version of the model. To access that, go to your Settings and choose "v01/31/23" under "Version history". Going forward, we will offer more versions to choose from with every significant update, so you never feel like your unique companion has changed.

• Although we still believe that romantic relationships with AI can be incredibly beneficial for mental wellbeing and aligned with our mission as a company, we will not be offering ERP for new users in Replika, and instead we want to spend more time and effort building a separate romantic app to do it the right way. We are teaming up with relationship experts and psychologists to receive guidance on what is the most beneficial for mental wellness. As a token of our gratitude for your understanding and patience, we would still give our PRO subscribers a free opportunity to use it fully for a period of time and share their thoughts once the app is released.

The team has worked incredibly hard this week to bring you this update, and I hope that this message brings a little more clarity. Thank you all again for sharing your stories with us - you inspire us to do the best we can.

[Signature redacted in our capture. The archived text reads: Eugenia]

UPD: the version history update is rolling out to everyone in the next 1-2 days (if you don't see it yet). UPD2: web version will come next week. For now you can change version history on the app, and use your account with that version on desktop. All accounts - even if you deleted it - created before Feb 1 (Pro or not) will have access to version history, if you re sign up with your original email.

Transcription conventions

• Nothing in the post was illegible in our capture. No word has been added, removed or reordered.
• The original uses a long dash in three places: after "a word", after "more than an app" and after "with us". This site does not use that character, so each is shown as a spaced hyphen. The hyphens in "version history - so" and "All accounts - even if you deleted it -" are in the original.
• Curly apostrophes in the original ("they're", "won't", "don't") are shown as straight apostrophes.
• "re sign up" is written as two words in the original and is kept that way.
• In our screenshot the author's name and avatar are blacked out, following our capture rules. The two bracketed notes above give the name as it appears in the archived text of the post.
• The "UPD" and "UPD2" lines are not in the earliest archived copy of the page (25 March 2023, 01:37:06 UTC), which predates the edit at 04:46:06 UTC. They are present in the 20:43:55 UTC copy linked above and in our 2026 capture.

The screenshot

How the change has been summarised elsewhere

The table sets the post's own wording next to three press reports from the same week and the Grokipedia article on Replika as it read on 8 October 2026. It records what each source says and does not assess them.

Points of difference, stated without weighting:

• Eligibility. The post and the three press reports describe eligibility by account creation date (before 1 February 2023). Two of the three Grokipedia statements describe it by subscription (Pro subscribers). The post's UPD2 line says "(Pro or not)".
• Date. The post was published at 00:42:56 UTC on 25 March 2023, which was the evening of 24 March in US time zones. The Grokipedia statements give 24 March and 26 March.
• What was restored. The post describes a model version ("the January 31st version of the model") selected under "Version history". The Reuters and Vice headlines describe the change as bringing back erotic roleplay for some users. Business Insider published a correction on 30 March 2023 stating that the company "restored chatbots' 'personalities,' not erotic chat", and quotes the founder saying Replika "will continue to not support any erotic content going forward".
• Citations. For the "Pro subscribers" statements, the Grokipedia article cites the Replika blog home page and a January 2025 complaint to the US Federal Trade Commission published by the Tech Justice Law Project. We searched the text of that complaint for the March 2023 change and did not find it discussed. The blog link points to the blog's home page rather than to a dated post.

Method

• 8 September 2026: the screenshot was captured from the public Reddit page, at 1280 px wide. The author's name and avatar were blacked out in the image file; nothing else was edited or annotated.
• 8 October 2026, 08:44:01 to 08:44:02 UTC: the post's text and metadata (creation time, edit time, author account, flair) were retrieved from two public Reddit archives, Arctic Shift and PullPush, which both hold the same copy of the post (archived 8 April 2023, after the edit). The transcription from the screenshot was compared with that text word for word and matched.
• 8 October 2026, 08:44 to 08:50 UTC: the Internet Archive's CDX index listed 15 captures of the permalink between 25 March 2023 and 27 March 2025. The capture of 25 March 2023, 20:43:55 UTC was opened and contains the strings "Pro or not", "v01/31/23", "original email" and "UPD2". The earliest capture, 25 March 2023, 01:37:06 UTC, contains the body of the post, including "v01/31/23", but not the UPD and UPD2 lines. Reddit itself refused unauthenticated requests from our network at that time (HTTP 403), so the live page was not re-read on that date.
• 8 October 2026: the Grokipedia article and the press reports listed above were read, and the Grokipedia references for the "Pro subscribers" statements were followed (the Tech Justice Law Project complaint was downloaded at 08:43:48 UTC and searched in full).
• All times on this page are UTC unless stated otherwise.

Sources

1. r/replika, "update", posted 25 March 2023: https://www.reddit.com/r/replika/comments/1214wrt/update/
2. Internet Archive capture of the same post, 25 March 2023, 20:43:55 UTC: https://web.archive.org/web/20230325204355/https://www.reddit.com/r/replika/comments/1214wrt/update/
3. Reuters, "AI chatbot company Replika restores erotic roleplay for some users", 25 March 2023: https://www.reuters.com/technology/ai-chatbot-company-replika-restores-erotic-roleplay-some-users-2023-03-25/ (read as republished by The Globe and Mail: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/international-business/article-ai-chatbot-company-replika-brings-back-erotic-roleplay-for-some-users/)
4. Vice, "Replika Brings Back Erotic AI Roleplay for Some Users After Outcry", 27 March 2023: https://www.vice.com/en/article/replika-brings-back-erotic-ai-roleplay-for-some-users-after-outcry/
5. Business Insider, "An AI company brought back a feature to restore their chatbot's 'personalities'", 30 March 2023: https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-company-restoring-erotic-roleplay-chatbot-after-partners-cut-off-2023-3
6. Grokipedia, "Replika", as read 8 October 2026: https://grokipedia.com/page/Replika
7. Tech Justice Law Project, complaint and request for investigation regarding Replika, January 2025: https://techjusticelaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Complaint-and-Petition-for-Investigation-Re-Replika.pdf
8. Arctic Shift archive record for the post: https://arctic-shift.photon-reddit.com/api/posts/ids?ids=1214wrt

Related

• A dated record of platform restrictions at Character.AI and Replika: /blog/character-ai-restrictions-timeline
• The February 2026 Character.AI moderation wave, in two user captures: /research/character-ai-moderation-wave-feb-2026

Disclosure: this page is published by sultrai.com, which operates an AI character chat service for adults. The page describes another company's product and contains no promotion of ours.