Growing Niche: Romantic Companion Bots

One of the fastest growing sectors within the companion chatbot industry is the romantic companion chatbot. These are also called intimate chatbots.

In a world where online dating can be incredibly frustrating, unproductive, and sometimes humiliating, romantic companion chatbots offer immediate engagement, endless encouragement, effortless support, and generous compliments. Some can be highly sexualized, both visually and in conversation.

These digital companions can be custom-designed by the user to meet visual standards rarely unattainable by real humans.

The welcome pages for Candy.ai, a leading romantic companion chatbot company, look like this:

Are people really falling in love with digital replicas?

In some cases, yes.

Back in 2013, the movie Her imagined a near-future where a man develops a close romantic relationship with an operating system designed to meet his every need.

Twelve years later, that imagined future is real and available for the price of a monthly subscription fee.

Recent articles on the phenomenon include:

My Couples Retreat With 3 AI Chatbots and the Humans Who Love Them (Wired)
’I felt pure, unconditional love’": the people who marry their AI chatbots (The Guardian)
Love is a Drug. AI Chatbots are Exploiting That (The New York Times)
Your AI Lover Will Change You (The New Yorker)
Please Break Up With Your AI Lover (The Washington Post)

kids and teens are especially vulnerable

In a recent webinar, The Dangers of Artificial Intimacy: AI Companions and Child Development, author and law professor Gaia Bernstein noted:

“AI companion bots are springing into the fertile ground prepared by social media and other addictive technologies.

At this point we have teens spending at least eight hours a day on screens, many of those hours on social media. The data shows that they are more depressed, more anxious, and especially more lonely than ever.

Now come these specialized AI companion platforms. They advertise themselves as the solution for anxiety and depression—but especially loneliness. Basically saying, we will be your friends. You won't be lonely anymore.

You're taking a generation of kids who are already alone, and now you're giving them a solution that takes them away again from human relationship.”

Learn more:

Three tech and child development experts discuss the risks of AI companion chatbots.

Next:

• Resources for Policymakers and Parents