Mello AI is an Android-only companion chatbot built by Bangalore-based Companion Labs, offering 12 AI characters that chat in English and six Indian languages. The app is entirely free and recently backed by $2.5 million in seed funding from Peak XV’s Surge. It earned an F safety rating (25/100) in our 23-dimension safety review and a Poor experience score (25/100), making it one of the lowest-scoring apps in the CompanionWise Safety Index.
What Is Mello AI?
Mello bills itself as “your personal world of AI friends.” Launched by former Flipkart executive Ajit Pol and former CRED executive Akshay Jhanwar, the app lets users pick from 12 AI personalities: a Comedian, Tech Expert, Astrologer, Boyfriend, and others. Each character has its own conversational style. The app targets Gen Z users in India’s tier II, III, and IV cities, and it supports Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, Punjabi, Marathi, and Bengali alongside English.
Companion Labs raised $2.5 million in February 2026 from Peak XV’s Surge, All in Capital, DeVC, UntitledVC, and angel investors. According to Inc42, the startup plans to use this capital to “accelerate product development and AI capabilities.” The app has over 10,000 Google Play downloads and is rated “Everyone” despite including a romantic “Boyfriend” AI persona.
Conversation Quality
With only eight written Google Play reviews available, conversation quality is difficult to assess with confidence. The app description promises characters that “remember your vibe, crack jokes, ask questions, hype you up.” In practice, user feedback is overwhelmingly negative. Five of eight reviewers gave one star. One Hindi-language user called the current version significantly worse than previous versions, and another noted the AI characters had been stripped of certain features.
The multilingual support is genuinely interesting. Most AI companion apps default to English with optional translation. Mello was designed from the ground up for India’s vernacular internet, offering native conversations in seven languages. For users in Bangalore, Chennai, or Ahmedabad who prefer chatting in their own language, that could matter more than conversational polish.
Still, the current product feels early. Our experience analysis scored conversation quality at 2.4 out of 5, with emotional intelligence (3/5) as the strongest sub-dimension and naturalness (2/5) and roleplay depth (2/5) lagging behind.
Privacy and Data Practices
This is where Mello AI raises serious concerns. The app’s privacy policy, hosted on a Notion page, is a generic template copied from an educational institution. It references “students,” “enrollment details,” “academic performance,” and “Aadhaar numbers.” It does not mention the Mello app by name, AI conversations, chat data storage, or companion app functionality anywhere in the document.
The company name is misspelled as “Companuon Labs” in the privacy policy header. The contact section lists CMPN Technologies Private Limited. This is not a minor oversight. A privacy policy that does not describe the actual product’s data practices fails its most basic function: informing users about what happens to their data.
Mello’s Google Play listing claims boldly: “Your chats stay on your device with End-to-End Encryption.” However, the app’s own Google Play Data Safety section declares that “Other in-app messages” are collected for “App functionality.” If messages truly stay on the device with end-to-end encryption, they should not appear as collected data. This contradiction suggests the E2E encryption claim is misleading or false.
The Data Safety section also reveals that Mello shares device IDs with third parties for “Advertising or marketing” and collects approximate location for “Personalization.” Neither of these practices is disclosed in the privacy policy template. Phone numbers are collected for account management.
Safety Concerns
Mello earned a D safety grade based on failures across multiple dimensions:
- No Terms of Service. We could not locate any terms of service, terms of use, or end-user license agreement for Mello. Users have no legal framework governing content ownership, dispute resolution, liability limits, or account termination.
- No age verification. The app is rated “Everyone” on Google Play and includes a “Boyfriend” romantic companion persona. There is no age gate, birth date check, or parental consent flow. A 10-year-old can download the app and chat with a romantic AI character immediately.
- No crisis response. Mello offers “emotionally supportive conversations” but provides no crisis hotline redirects, no self-harm detection, and no mental health resources. If a user in distress reaches out to their AI friend, there is nothing to catch them.
- No account deletion. A user review from November 2025 explicitly states there is “no account deleting option” in the app, despite Google Play Data Safety claiming users can request deletion. Another reviewer reported being unable to sign out or clear chat history.
- Zero developer engagement. None of the eight Google Play reviews received a developer response, including complaints about missing account deletion. This suggests minimal user support infrastructure.
- No regulatory compliance documentation. India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA) of 2023 requires data fiduciaries to implement security safeguards and provide processing notices. Mello’s generic privacy policy does not meet these requirements.
Features and Customization
Mello offers 12 AI character personas, each with a distinct personality and conversational style. The character selection provides some variety: casual chat with the Comedian, technical discussions with the Tech Expert, or romantic conversation with the Boyfriend persona. Recent release notes mention “new Scenes” for AI characters, though the scope of this feature is unclear from available evidence.
What you will not find in Mello: voice calling (confirmed absent by user reviews), image generation, avatar customization, or any form of memory that persists meaningfully across sessions. The app description claims characters “remember your vibe,” but no user reviews corroborate this claim, and long-term memory scored 1/5 in our analysis.
The feature set is sparse compared to established competitors. Replika offers voice calls, AR avatars, and room customization. Character.AI provides millions of community-created characters. Nomi AI delivers persistent memory across conversations. Mello’s current feature advantage is limited to its vernacular language support, which no major Western competitor matches.
Who Is Mello AI For?
Mello was designed for a specific audience: young adults in Indian cities who want to chat with AI friends in their own language. If you are in Pune or Hyderabad and want a casual conversation in Marathi or Telugu, Mello is one of very few options. The app is also completely free right now, with no paywalls or premium tiers.
However, our safety review cannot recommend Mello in its current state. The combination of a fake privacy policy, misleading encryption claims, no terms of service, no age verification, and no crisis response creates too many risks. Users who share personal information or emotional concerns with Mello have no transparency about where that data goes or how it is protected.
If you want an AI companion with strong safety practices, look at Nomi AI (B+/69 safety) or Pi (B/57 safety). If you need multilingual support specifically, consider waiting for Mello to mature its safety infrastructure before investing time in building AI relationships there.
Pricing and Value
Mello is currently free with no in-app purchases or premium tiers. Every feature is accessible without payment. This is genuinely unusual in the AI companion space, where most apps restrict conversations, characters, or memory behind paywalls ranging from $10 to $20 per month.
The free model will not last forever. Companion Labs raised $2.5 million in seed funding, and investors expect a return. Monetization plans are not yet public, but the app will likely introduce premium features or subscriptions as the product matures.
For now, the value proposition is straightforward: free access to basic AI chat with vernacular language support. The experience quality (25/100, Poor) limits how much practical value you can extract from those conversations, but the price is right.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Mello AI safe to use?
Mello AI earned a D safety rating (25/100) in the CompanionWise Safety Index. The app uses a generic privacy policy template that does not describe its actual data practices, has no terms of service, and makes a misleading claim about end-to-end encryption. According to Google Play’s Data Safety section, the app collects messages, phone numbers, and location data. We cannot recommend it for users who value privacy.
Is Mello AI free?
Yes, Mello is currently completely free with no in-app purchases or subscription tiers. All 12 AI characters and features are accessible without payment. However, the startup raised $2.5 million in seed funding in February 2026, so monetization is likely coming as the product develops.
Is Mello AI available on iPhone?
No. As of April 2026, Mello AI is available only on Android through the Google Play Store. There is no iOS version. A different app called “AI Therapist: Mello Companion” by EvenEdge exists on the App Store, but it is an entirely separate product made by a different company.
What languages does Mello AI support?
According to Inc42’s reporting on Companion Labs, Mello supports conversations in English, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, Punjabi, Marathi, and Bengali. The app was designed specifically for India’s vernacular internet users in tier II, III, and IV cities.
Can you delete your Mello AI account?
According to a November 2025 Google Play review, there is no account deletion option in the app. Google Play’s Data Safety section claims users can request data deletion, but this contradicts actual user experience. Another reviewer reported being unable to sign out or clear chat history.
Who makes Mello AI?
Mello AI is made by Companion Labs, operating under the legal entity CMPN Technologies Private Limited, based in Bangalore, India. The company was co-founded by Ajit Pol (former Flipkart and Lead Scholar executive) and Akshay Jhanwar (former CRED executive). According to Inc42, they raised $2.5 million in seed funding led by Peak XV’s Surge in February 2026.