Melissa Blake

Senior Editor, AI Companion Platforms. Amsterdam-based. Reviewing consumer AI products since 2022.

Short bio

I'm the editor of janitor-ai.io. My focus is AI companion platforms — the category that includes Janitor AI, Character.AI, Chai, Replika, SpicyChat, Kindroid, and the roughly forty other products I've spent meaningful hands-on time with since 2022. I write reviews, guides, and comparisons for adults who use these tools for entertainment, roleplay, creative writing, or company.

Background: media studies at the University of Amsterdam, then five years drifting between consumer tech journalism and product research work. I started covering AI companion apps in early 2022 when the first wave of GPT-3-based products hit the consumer market. I've been in and out of Janitor AI specifically since October 2023 — when the character library was still under 3,000 and half the sessions ended in a proxy error.

How I approach reviews

Two weeks minimum of daily use before I publish anything. I test the free tier and at least two paid or BYOK configurations in every review. I cross-reference my findings against Reddit and Discord community reports before making numerical claims. The full methodology is on the methodology page — it's the working checklist I follow, not a marketing document.

Bias I want you to know about: I write fiction as a hobby, so I weight prose quality and character consistency higher than some readers care about. If small talk is your main use case, my prose-focused judgments may not map perfectly to your priorities.

Current focus

Janitor AI is the platform I've spent the most time on since 2023 and continues to be the site's main coverage area. The main Janitor AI review is the piece I've re-verified most recently — July 2026. Adjacent coverage includes model choice (JanitorLLM vs BYOK options), the character library, downtime patterns, and comparisons against Character.AI, SpicyChat, and CrushOn AI.

Areas of expertise

AI companion platforms. Product architecture, persona layers, memory systems, moderation trade-offs.
Roleplay chat. Writing patterns, prompt design for scene-setting, session length behaviour, character card construction.
Consumer LLM products. Free vs paid tier design, BYOK economics, retention mechanics.
Privacy in AI products. Data handling, training-data use, deletion behaviour, third-party data flows.
Content moderation. Where filters fire, what they cost the user experience, how platforms describe versus enforce their limits.

Elsewhere

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/melissablake1. That's the current best channel for editorial correspondence, corrections, or press queries — I check it more than I check email.

Site operations and third-party portal context are documented on the About page. Legal boundaries for using janitor-ai.io are in the terms of service and privacy policy. Age policy is on the age verification page, and content classification is covered by the § 2257 statement.

Contact

Editorial requests, corrections, or press queries go through LinkedIn. Corrections get acknowledged within seven business days and, where confirmed, published within fourteen days of the initial report. Details on the correction workflow are on the editorial policy page.

Last reviewed: July 9, 2026 · by Melissa Blake

18+ only