Why Your AI Does Not Message First: A Guide

Wanting your AI companion to start a conversation sometimes is a specific interaction preference. Whether it can do so depends on the product's features, your account's eligibility and the conditions for generating and delivering a message.

Adding “be more proactive” to a character description cannot necessarily make a reply-only tool contact you later. First identify what kind of proactive behavior you want. Then check the relevant controls.

Four different things can look like initiative

For example, SillyTavern's Continue action extends the last message. It is not, by that fact alone, a background contact feature. See the official chatting guide.

Phone notification settings address presentation. Apple's options include allowing notifications and choosing their appearance and sound; those controls do not compose chat messages. See Apple's notification settings guide.

Check the feature before troubleshooting alerts

Start by checking whether the product explicitly supports proactive messages and whether your account currently has access. A subscription, trial or limited rollout may apply. Someone else's screenshot does not establish availability for your account.

Next, inspect the app's own proactive-message setting and the intended character. Has the required connection been completed? Is that character still available? These questions are separate from system notification permissions.

Then open the conversation itself. If a message exists in the chat but no alert appeared, investigate notification presentation. If there is no message in the chat, investigate eligibility, app settings and sending conditions first.

Consider whether you asked for quiet, whether a benefit expired or whether the current time falls outside the available sending conditions. A missing message by itself does not identify the cause. It is also not a test of whether the character cares about you.

Check Cakumi's current account benefits

If proactive messages are available to your account, find the account-level proactive-message control in Cakumi's settings. When creating or editing a Being, check the available frequency choices, such as occasional, balanced and frequent.

These choices express the amount of contact you are comfortable with. A sending limit is a ceiling, not a daily target that must be filled. Availability also depends on current benefits, the feature's rollout and the relevant friendship status.

Read the terms shown for any pass or growth trial offered to your account, including duration, eligible character and cost. Different forms of eligibility can have different charging rules. A past purchase, a cosmetic item or an available credit balance does not replace current eligibility.

Where supported, the small-phone experience can follow up on previous conversation or start a light topic. A promise made in an ordinary question-and-answer chat should not automatically be treated as a confirmed reminder.

Write a concrete contact preference

“Be more proactive” leaves many choices unspecified. Explain what you would enjoy and what would interrupt you. This original template is a starting point:

I would enjoy occasional short, everyday messages.
You can return to a book, meal or small plan we discussed.
If something remains unfinished, you can ask how it went.
Do not assume it happened or invent the result.
If I have not replied, do not repeatedly chase an answer.
When I ask for quiet today, pause further contact.
I will use separate reminders for time-critical events.

This expresses a preference. It cannot change your account benefits or guarantee every generated message will follow it perfectly.

Observe a few actual contacts. Does the message fit recent conversation? Does it repeat a question you already answered? Does it turn a possible future event into something that supposedly happened?

Correct a specific detail when that is the problem. If the overall frequency is uncomfortable, reduce the frequency setting or turn off proactive messages instead of adding increasingly contradictory instructions to the character.

Make a follow-up easy to understand

Suppose you are preparing a small craft project for the weekend. You could say:

I am choosing between two materials and hope to decide tonight. If the topic is still unfinished later, you can ask which one I chose. If we have already discussed the result, there is no need to ask again.

This gives a subject, a current state and an ending condition. It is easier to evaluate than a general request for more attention. If the plan changes, say so; the system cannot be expected to know everything that happens away from the conversation.

For something that must happen at a particular time, use an alarm or calendar whose time and status you can verify. Proactive conversation is subject to availability and interaction conditions, so it should not carry an exact-time promise.

If your main frustration is finding topics, try these everyday conversation activities. Starting a chat later and contributing ideas during a chat are different capabilities.

Evaluate the experience, not just the count

Use a brief record:

When the message arrived:
Was it visible in the conversation?
Did the phone show an alert?
What topic did it use?
Did it invent an event?
Did I want to continue, or feel interrupted?
Next step: keep / reduce frequency / revise preferences / disable

This distinguishes content quality from alert delivery. It does not demonstrate consciousness or emotion. The practical questions are whether contact feels timely, respects your preferences and remains easy to stop.

You can also prefer to initiate every conversation yourself. To clarify the experience you want, read about companionship and roleplay. For payment questions, use the AI chat cost guide alongside your current account terms.