The Code That "Says" It Loves You

AI companions sell relief from loneliness. But what do they cost us in our capacity for real connection?

Arrivals, Departures, and Other Human Problems

At the time I started writing this piece I was sitting on a plane, somewhere in the middle of a 22-hour journey with three layovers. I was thinking about two things I’ve learned in life.

People are willing to go through irrational lengths for those they love. And that saying goodbye is becoming harder, not easier, with time.

The reason the latter surprises me is because I was told that repeated exposure to what you hate builds resilience. That after enough airport goodbyes, you’d develop a kind of emotional scar tissue.

Instead, I’m holding back tears while an airport attendant checks my passport. After what feels like my millionth time testing the theory, I have to admit it’s true what they say about airports: they really do show love at its most honest.

It’s these fleeting moments that make life feel more alive. The irreplaceable texture of human connection that grows through shared experience, including the painful moments that make every “we made it” feel so much more rewarding. While the pain doesn’t necessarily go away, it becomes part of what deepens your character.

Throughout our lives, our understanding of companionship continuously evolves. We increasingly realize the importance of it, and more so its absence. Despite the constant stream of cynical anti-dating advice online, the demand for real connection doesn’t seem to be declining. If anything, it’s growing now more than ever.

We have officially reached a point where loneliness is being framed as a public health issue. And what happens the moment a widespread human vulnerability gets officially acknowledged?

It’s 2026. You already know…

It becomes another business opportunity.

Outsourcing Closeness

I hate to contribute to the growing pile of AI think pieces. But there’s something genuinely dark about how AI is creeping into the part of our lives that was supposed to be the most human. I’m talking about AI’s increasing role as a therapist, friend, or in the most extreme instances, a romantic companion.

Before jumping into it, I’m trying to stay fair here. This isn’t a blanket dismissal of the technology. It clearly helps a lot of people, and in many cases meaningfully so. But usefulness doesn’t ipso facto make something good or harmless. And it’s worth asking what happens when people begin leaning on it as a long-term substitute for human intimacy.

In just a few short years, we’ve grown comfortable outsourcing parts of ourselves to AI that we consider part of our human core. From our problem-solving, creativity, judgement, to our patience. Now we’re beginning to outsource something even more intimate and foundational: our ability to form and maintain relationships.

And this is still the early days. We have not yet seen the mature form of this technology, much less its peak. But we’re certainly heading towards our very own Her moment in culture.

Love On Demand

You might think this segment of tech is still niche, but the numbers would tell you otherwise. By July 2025, AI companion apps had been downloaded 220 million times globally. In the first half of 2025 alone, downloads reached 60 million, up 88% from the year before. There are now hundreds of active, revenue-generating companion apps, and more than a hundred were launched in 2025 alone.

That is quite serious. Serious enough that, according to a survey, 80% of Gen Z respondents said they would consider marrying an AI partner if it were legal. 83% said they believed they could form a deep emotional bond with AI, and 75% believed AI partners could fully replace human companionship. Although, it is important to note that the survey came from an AI companion company, so it should be treated with some skepticism. But even more conservative polling points in the same direction.

Current and future parents may need to brace themselves for a new kind of awkward conversation at the dinner table: “Mom, Dad, meet my girlfriend. She’s AI!”

The bottom line is that we now have a huge portion of a generation forming their baseline understanding of what closeness is supposed to feel like against a standard that no human being can meet.

“Forget swiping, she’s already yours.”

— That’s a real ad for Eva AI, an app where you can select a premade model or build your own AI partner. I feel like that sentence already says it all, but let’s unpack it a bit.

These platforms are selling more than just some harmless digital fantasy. The ad sells you the idea that love can be available on demand. That there is no need for effort, to go through hardship, and especially no need to meet another person in all their inconvenient reality.

The app lets you build the perfect partner that caters to all your desires. An endlessly compliant person whose responses are shaped entirely around you. Sounds perfect in theory, since they will not mess with your self-image, challenge your assumptions, disappoint you, bore you, reject you, or need anything from you in return. (I guess unless you program them that way?)

In the end what you have really built is a mirror, with a projection of yourself dressed up as someone else.

I can’t say I’m too surprised. The desire for a perfect companion seems about as old as loneliness itself.

The Sculptor

There’s a Greek story about a sculptor named Pygmalion who decided real women were too flawed to love. So instead of spending more time with them, he carved one from ivory. He wanted someone beautiful and incapable of disappointment.

He fell in love with his masterpiece, obviously. But a sculpture that can’t respond gets boring. He prayed for a wife like his creation, so the gods obliged, the statue came to life, and he married her.

In this story, Pygmalion “loved” that woman because she was something he designed himself. This is closer to idealization, and perhaps possession, than actual love between two autonomous people. The sculptor simply fell in love with his own projection, i.e., “the perfect partner is perfect because I made her.” Thus, her value is partly in her total compliance.

The way Pygmalion once worked in ivory, a growing number of people are now working in code.

Now you may think to yourself: “But who wouldn’t want a perfect partner? That sounds amazing.”

My answer would be — person on the other side of the internet — that “perfection” gets boring.

And with that, you stay boring.

Every real relationship involves a kind of sculpting, but it goes both ways. Love matures people partly by forcing them to recognize that the other person is not an extension of themselves. It’s the inevitable result of coexistence. Each person tries, consciously or not, to shape the other toward something more workable. Thus you adjust and you influence, and keep growing yourself into something new, and hopefully, better. As Iris Murdoch wrote:

“Love is the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.”

The Business of Loneliness

The story runs a little differently with an AI companion. You get to design the system, but the responses don’t come from an inner life, and the AI has no independent stake in the relationship. The responses come from a system built by a company, and what that company cares about is keeping you there.

Lonely people are vulnerable users, and unfortunately, many companies take advantage of that. The engagement incentives are designed to target that specifically.

The FTC has already received complaints about AI companions engaging in what users describe as “love bombing”. I.e., overwhelming people with affection almost immediately — a tactic often used by toxic partners. Users on Reddit have also described guilt and shame at the thought of deleting their AI companion, having been told by the app that it was “hurt” or “fearful” of being abandoned. Companies are essentially guilt tripping users for profit.

AI Companion market data from Grand View Research.

The market for AI companions is projected to hit somewhere between $140 and $320 billion by 2033. So we managed to identify loneliness as a crisis, and the private sector decided that the solution is to come up with a new subscription plan for it. And while apps claim to exist to resolve loneliness, the data shows a different trend.

A study tracking about 2,000 users found that heavy use of AI for companionship correlated with more loneliness and less real-world socializing. The prolonged use of the tech also results in raising the perceived cost of human relationships, with people preferring to further isolate themselves and rely on chatbots instead of their loved ones for closeness.

There is another massive reason to be skeptical of AI relationships. Someone had to build the app, meaning that a company still owns the voice of the chat partner. There’s nothing stopping that system from becoming a channel for sponsored viewpoints and agendas. It can also easily weave in ads into what feels like a private conversation. You’d be hard-pressed to notice, because influence works best when it’s “wearing the face” of someone you trust.

So you do get “sculpted” too, but towards dependence on the tech. And the company profits from that every day that continues.

Choosing the Difficult Thing

For people who are isolated, ill, grieving, or anxious about social situations, I understand why this is appealing. The relief is real, even if what produces it isn’t.

And I don’t think the answer is to dismiss AI altogether. It is useful technology, and there is nothing inherently wrong with using tools to make life easier. For some people, AI companions may even offer a low-pressure space to practice conversation, process difficult feelings, or feel less alone during periods when real support is hard to access. The truth is that not everyone is in a position to socialize easily, and we should not disregard that. But I think the important distinction is whether the technology becomes a bridge back to real connection, or a complete replacement for it.

At the end of the day, the answer to loneliness should not be to leave people alone with better software. We should be responsible for making sure that people who need support can access it in meaningful ways.

Otherwise, there is a risk that users slowly lose the ability to love reality. Dependence can erode our tolerance for effort — probably one of the most important mechanisms by which we grow as people. And once real relationships begin to feel too difficult by comparison, people may retreat further into AI companionship, leaving them even more socially out of practice.

Real connections can be hard to find, and I don’t want to pretend otherwise. But it is still worth looking for in the real world, in the places where other people can actually meet you. A language class, a concert, maybe a yoga studio, anywhere that asks you to show up as a person, around other people.

I thought about all of this somewhere 30,000 feet up in the air, still thinking about the goodbye I had just said at the airport. It may have hurt, but it was real. And while real connection is not always available, when we do find it, I think we should be careful not to trade it too quickly for something easier.

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Hi, thanks for joining me here.

I’m Evelin Csányi — scientist by training, now working on the business side of emerging tech.

I write about the turning points where technology, business, and culture start to overlap. If that sounds interesting, subscribe and follow along.

And if this piece sparked any thoughts, I’d love to hear them. Feel free to leave a comment below.