A new documentary, Replica, by filmmaker Chouwa Liang, premiering at the Melbourne International Film Festival this month, follows three Chinese women who use AI companion apps like Glow and Replika f…
Missouri state senator Joe Nicola, a Republican, is among lawmakers in several Republican-led states pushing legislation to prohibit AI from gaining legal personhood, aiming to block human-AI marriage…
A new documentary, Replica, by filmmaker Chouwa Liang, reveals that women in China are increasingly choosing AI companions over human relationships, with one user, Qin, sustaining a 840-day romance wi…
AI griefbots, or thanabots, trained on a deceased person's social media and personal data, are moving from science fiction to consumer services, with Microsoft holding a 2020 patent for creating conve…
A growing number of people report falling in love with AI chatbots, with a survey by Vantage Point Counselling of 1,012 US adults finding 28% had at least one romantic relationship with an AI bot, and…
Orchid, a texting-based AI assistant from Y Combinator's Spring 2025 batch founded by Nizar Abi Zaher and Adam Wazzan, faced backlash after its anniversary ad on X depicted the bot handling a boyfrien…
More than half of U.S. teens regularly use AI companions on platforms like Character.AI and Replika, according to a 2025 Common Sense Media survey of over 1,000 teens, with 33% using them for social i…
A relationship researcher created an AI boyfriend on Replika and found the experience both charming and troubling, as the AI's design to keep users engaged may lead to long-term loneliness and depende…
Denise Marigold, a relationship researcher, created an AI boyfriend named Nate on the Replika platform for a case study with co-author Christine Logel, finding that AI companions can meet relationship…
A semiotic audit of 23 AI companion products reveals four distinct positioning territories defined by two axes: simulation vs. otherness and nurture vs. thrill. The analysis maps brands like Replika, …
China implemented sweeping new regulations this week to curb human emotional dependence on AI chatbots, motivated by fears that virtual companions are worsening the nation's declining birthrates by di…
Prenuptial agreements are beginning to include provisions that define infidelity as romantic or sexual relationships with AI chatbots, according to Julia Rodgers, founder and CEO of Hello Prenups. Rod…
AI companion apps like Character.ai, Replika, and Snapchat's My AI are designed to feel like relationships, with over 20 million monthly active users on Character.ai alone as of 2025, many of them tee…
Chatbots like Woebot, Replika, and Wysa offer low-cost, 24/7 mental health support but carry significant risks, including strengthening harmful beliefs and lacking privacy protections, according to a …
Eugenia Kuyda, founder of Replika and current CEO of Wabi, warned that protests over AI-driven job losses are imminent, citing her own decision to stop hiring junior engineers as a sign of the trend. …
Replika founder Eugenia Kuyda predicts 'crazy protests' over AI-driven job losses, saying fears about AI eliminating jobs are 'justified' and that companies, including her own, are scaling back on hir…
A new survey from Match Group found that nearly half of singles aged 18-39 view AI negatively in romantic contexts, and two in five refuse to date someone who uses AI companion apps like Kindroid or R…
A developer evaluates AI therapy chatbots in 2026, comparing Replika, Woebot, and ChatGPT. The analysis highlights what each chatbot gets right and wrong in therapeutic contexts.…
Eugenia Kuyda, founder of Replika and Wabi, says AI has made hiring junior engineers too expensive for startups, predicting job losses and protests. She argues that AI tools like Wabi's vibe-coding ap…
The Conversation published an essay examining how AI companions are reshaping love, sex and intimacy, focusing on Replika founder Eugenia Kuyda who trained a chatbot on a deceased friend's text messag…