How AI Companion Memory Actually Works
A plain-English breakdown of vector stores, summarization layers, and why your companion sometimes forgets your birthday.
Short-term vs long-term memory
Short-term memory is the rolling context window — usually the last 20–100 messages the model can see directly.
Long-term memory is a separate database (typically a vector store) where facts about you and the relationship are saved and retrieved on demand.
Why companions forget
Two reasons: the rolling window pushed an important detail out, or the long-term memory layer never wrote it down. Better platforms run a background summarizer that promotes important facts into long-term storage automatically.
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