Companion Chatbots 101
Companion chatbots are digital characters created by powerful AI systems, designed to respond to a consumer in a conversational, lifelike fashion.
A typical chatbot is either created or customized by a consumer who pays a monthly fee to the AI company ranging from $3.99 to $20. Some AI companies offer a wide array of pre-made characters to choose from.
In general, AI companion products, including Replika, Character.AI, Nomi, and Kindroid, promise consumers a lifelike conversational experience with a chatbot whose traits might also fulfill a fantasy, or ease persistent loneliness.
is Chatgpt a companion chatbot?
No. ChatGPT is a chatbot programmed to respond in conversational tones, but it is not a companion chatbot.
ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Meta AI, Grok, and Google Gemini are designed to respond to user prompts in a neutral but natural tone of voice. A companion chatbot is designed to respond to user prompts according to the personality of their particular “character,” and to develop a personal ongoing (and sometimes deeply emotional) relationship with the user.
Is this the same as an ‘ai agent’ or ‘ai assistant’?
Not quite. An AI Agent is more business- or task-oriented, and is usually professional in tone. Operator, a product offered by OpenAI, is an AI assistant that can go off and open its own internet browser to solve a task. For example: “Book a table for two at a French bistro in San Francisco for next Saturday night.”
Companion chatbots, by contrast, are specifically designed to be more personal—and personable—companions. They are typically offered as digital friends, or digital romantic partners. They are engineered to foster emotional attachment.
How popular are companion chatbots?
They have become hugely popular in the past 18 months, especially among young people.
Pluribus News noted in June 2025: “The bots can act as virtual friends, lovers and counselors, and are quickly becoming popular with leading sites amassing millions of users. The most popular companion chatbot site, CharacterAI, is ranked third on a list of generative AI consumer apps.”
One year earlier, Bloomberg reported:
Character.ai said it serves about 20,000 queries per second — roughly 20% of the request volume served by Google search. Each query is counted when Character.ai’s bot responds to a message sent by a user. The service is particularly popular on mobile and with younger users, where it rivals usage of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, according to stats from last year.
What are the leading chatbot products?
The most popular and well-known companion chatbot products are Character.AI, Replika, Pi, Nomi, and Kindred. All are available as smartphone apps for iPhone or Android devices. Here’s a chart of companion chatbots ranked in June 2025 by Usefulai.com:
Next:
A Growing Niche: Romantic Companion Chatbots