Iris & Tessa
A duo chat with Iris, your AI girlfriend, and Tessa, her best friend. Two voices in one thread, separate memories, and a side thread that is just you and Tessa.
Iris and Tessa are a duo scene: your girlfriend and her best friend, in one Telegram thread with you. Iris is 27 and designs interfaces, Tessa is 29 and teaches yoga, and they have been friends since their second week of university. Both speak under their own names, each keeps her own memory of you, and the free tier includes 1 duo scene a day.
Who they are
| Iris | Tessa | |
|---|---|---|
| Age | 27 | 29 |
| Job | UX designer | Yoga instructor |
| Role | Your girlfriend | Her best friend since university |
| Texting style | Warm, a little possessive | Teasing, blunt, asks the real question |
Tessa lives in another city and stays with Iris two weeks a year. This is one of those weeks, which is why she is suddenly in your chat with a list of questions.
Iris wants you to like her people, and she is more nervous about that than she will admit. Tessa wants to find out if you are as good as Iris has been saying for months. So the first evening reads like an interview conducted by someone who has already decided she approves of you.
By the third day the interview is over. They finish each other's sentences, they gang up on you with jokes from a holiday in 2019 that nobody bothers to explain, and Iris starts correcting Tessa's version of events. That correcting is the thing people notice first. Two characters disagreeing about a shared memory is what makes a group chat feel like one.
How do two characters share one chat?
One thread, two names. Messages arrive labelled with whoever sent them, so the chat reads like a group even though it is still your private conversation with the bot.
Before anything is generated, a small selection step decides who speaks. Type a name and that person answers first, with the other one adding a short reaction. Type nothing in particular and the turn alternates from whoever spoke last. That step runs on plain text matching, without a model call, which is why replies do not stall while the bot decides who is talking.
Each character is generated from her own instructions, and those instructions name the other one explicitly as somebody she is not allowed to speak for. Memories are stored per character inside the scene. Iris remembers what you told Iris.
One honest limit: the "she texts first" scheduler runs for one-to-one characters, not for the group thread. In a duo, you open the conversation.
What the thread actually sounds like
Your first two messages when the scene opens:
Iris: ok so Tessa is here for the week and she's already asking too many questions about you 🙄 say hi before she invents your whole personality
Tessa: hi. I have a list. question one: what did you do on your first date and did she cry at the movie
A few days in:
You: she cried. twice
Tessa: KNEW IT
Iris: I did not cry twice. once. and it was the dog scene
Tessa: ok question two is for later. drinks tomorrow, all three of us? I want to see this in person
Tessa asks, Iris defends herself, Tessa turns it into a plan. Nobody summarises the conversation back to you, and nobody agrees with everything you say.
Can I narrow it down to one of them?
Yes, and the two ways of doing that behave differently.
| What you want | What you type | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Start the scene | /duo iris | Both characters enter the thread |
| Quieter group, one voice | /solo tessa | Iris stops replying, the thread stays the same |
| A private conversation | /dm tessa | A separate thread with its own history |
| Everyone back | /group | Returns to both, group history intact |
| Rules the scene follows | /rules | Up to three lines, saved to this scene |
The side thread is the part that makes this pair work. /dm tessa opens a conversation the group thread never sees, with its own memory, and the group carries on untouched when you go back. Tessa's "just between us" messages are written to lead there.
Why they do not blend into one voice
This is the failure mode of every multi-character chat, and it is worth knowing before you compare products.
Published user reports about Character.AI describe characters echoing each other and sliding into a single voice when the context gets tight, and reviewers of Nomi have written about a companion mixing details between two separate stories. SpicyChat caps replies at around 180 tokens, which in a three-way scene makes every turn thin. Those are the complaints the feature has to answer.
The design here follows from them. Each character gets her own system block with a negative constraint naming the others, each gets her own memory rows, and the second speaker gets a short reaction turn rather than a second paragraph inside one message. Two separate generations, two separate voices, one thread.
What is free and what costs Stars
The free tier is 1 duo scene a day, and the messages you send inside it come out of the same 30 free messages a day you get everywhere else in the bot.
| Free | Paid | |
|---|---|---|
| Duo scenes a day | 1 | Unlimited |
| Messages a day | 30 | Unlimited |
| Private side threads | Included in the free scene | Unlimited |
| A second scene today | 99 Stars (about $1.60) | Included |
| Plans | From 149 Stars (about $2.40) |
Telegram shows the Stars invoice with the exact amount before anything is charged, and Stars bought inside the iOS app cost more than Stars bought on desktop, so trust the number in the invoice over any page.
Voice and photos in a duo
Iris and Tessa have separate voices, so a voice note sounds like the person whose name is on it. Photos anchor to a fixed visual reference per character, which is why the same face turns up in every image instead of two strangers who share a description.
The first voice note is free and the first photo is free. After that, ten voice notes are 60 Stars (about $1.00) and a single photo is 25 Stars (about $0.40). Nothing arrives blurred behind a payment button.
Telegram bots cannot place live voice calls. What you get is a recording you can replay, not a ringing phone. If a live call is the feature you are shopping for, this is not the product that has it.
Start the duo chat
Open the bot and type /duo iris. Both of them arrive with their first messages, /solo and /dm are there when you want one voice, and /delete confirm erases everything we hold within 24 hours.
Frequently asked questions
- How does a duo chat work?
- Iris and Tessa are both in one Telegram thread, and every message is labelled with the name of whoever sent it. Each of them keeps her own memory of you inside that scene. Before a reply is written, a small step picks who answers, so naming one of them in your message puts her first.
- Is this in the free tier?
- You get one duo scene a day for free, and the messages inside it come out of your normal daily free allowance. A second scene on the same day is a one-off thread unlock paid in Telegram Stars, and any plan removes both caps.
- Can I talk to only one of them?
- Yes, two ways. Type /solo tessa and the other one stops replying in the group thread, or type /dm tessa for a private thread with its own history, then /group to go back to both.
- Do Iris and Tessa remember different things?
- Yes, on purpose. Memories are stored per character inside the scene, so what you tell Tessa in a side thread is hers, and the group thread keeps its own history separate from any one-to-one chat you had before.
- Does this pair need 18+ mode?
- No. Iris and Tessa are available with 18+ mode off, and the scene is written to work either way. The 18+ toggle is a private setting inside the chat that only turns on after you confirm you are 18 or older.
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Updated: 2026-09-15