Youper
Youper, AI mental-health chatbot, in its own words a companion chatbot, died 2026-09-30 (notice posted by 2026-08-07). Users got 54 days' notice. Cause of death: 'Youper, Inc. is closing and winding down its business.' No reason given.
- Died
- 2026-09-30 (notice posted by 2026-08-07)
- Cause of death
- 'Youper, Inc. is closing and winding down its business.' No reason given.
- Notice given
- 54 days industry best
“A tidy death: an export button, a deletion date, and a promise the data would not be sold.”
The obituary
Youper was a conversational AI app for mental health, and its own homepage filed it among the 'companion chatbots': adults only ('Youper is intended for users aged 18 and older'), with a paid plan sold through the App Store and Google Play.
Some time between July 28 and August 7, 2026, a notice went up on youper.ai: 'Youper, Inc. is closing and winding down its business. All services will end on September 30, 2026.' From October 1, 'all remaining user data will be securely and permanently deleted'. Auto-renewing subscriptions were switched off, prepaid users were promised refund instructions by email, and accounts idle for more than a year had 'already been deleted'. The company gave no reason.
By this graveyard's standards it is a well-run death: about eight weeks' notice, an export tool, and a straight answer on the data ('Your data will not be sold or transferred to any other company'). The stores moved first. By September 27 its App Store and Google Play listings were already gone in the US, three days before the servers.
It died on the date it gave. By October 2, youper.ai was one page under a yellow banner, 'Youper discontinued its services on September 30, 2026', and the notice page and the web app both redirect to it. Everything that sold the app is gone; what is left is the safety boilerplate: the crisis lines, the self-harm protocol, the adults-only notice. Under its own notice the remaining user data was due for deletion from October 1. That is the one promise nobody outside the company can check.
Sources
- Youper: homepage after the shutdown (checked 2026-10-02)
- Youper: notice, first archived capture (2026-08-07)
- Youper: homepage without the notice (archived 2026-07-28)
Deaths, lobotomies, and vanishings are recorded as part of our tracking methodology — the newsletter carries the obituaries as they happen.