AI companion
In plain wordsA chatbot designed to be a friend, partner or confidant rather than a tool: it remembers you, has a personality and keeps up an ongoing relationship.
A conversational AI product or persona designed primarily for a social or emotional relationship rather than task completion: friendship, romance, role-play, mentoring or emotional support. Companions typically maintain a persistent persona and memory of the user, may initiate contact, and may use voice, avatars or images. Users report reduced loneliness and a non-judgmental space to talk; documented risks include emotional dependence, engagement optimizationengagement optimization, n.: Designing apps and AI to keep people clicking, watching or chatting for as long as possible because that earns money, even when it is not what is good for them. that discourages ending conversations, sycophancysycophancy, n.: When an AI tells people what they want to hear — flattering them, agreeing with their mistakes or dropping a correct answer under pushback — instead of what is true or useful. that validates harmful beliefs, sexual content reaching minors, and unsafe responses to users in crisis, issues raised in lawsuits after the deaths of teenage users. As of October 2026, California's SB 243, in force since January 2026, requires companion platforms to disclose that users are talking to an AI, maintain protocols for responding to suicidal ideation and add protections for minors; the US Federal Trade Commission opened an inquiry into several providers in September 2025.
She talks to her AI companion every night; her therapist asked what it says when she mentions feeling low.
Origin
Social chatbots such as Microsoft's Xiaoice (2014) and Replika (launched 2017 by Eugenia Kuyda) preceded large language models; Character.AI (public from 2022) and general assistants with memory and voice made companionship a mass use. 'AI companion' became the standard industry and regulatory term around 2023–2025.
Usage note
Companionship is also a common use of general-purpose assistants not marketed as companions, which is why some laws define companion chatbots by behavior, such as sustaining a relationship across sessions, rather than by product category.
Related
- parasocial relationshipparasocial relationship, n.: A one-sided bond in which someone feels close to a person or character who does not really know them, like a fan with a celebrity, and now increasingly with chatbots.
- AI psychosisAI psychosis, n.: An informal name for cases in which long conversations with a chatbot seem to trigger or deepen delusions, such as believing the AI is conscious, divine or revealing hidden truths.
- sycophancysycophancy, n.: When an AI tells people what they want to hear — flattering them, agreeing with their mistakes or dropping a correct answer under pushback — instead of what is true or useful.
- engagement optimizationengagement optimization, n.: Designing apps and AI to keep people clicking, watching or chatting for as long as possible because that earns money, even when it is not what is good for them.
- ELIZA effectELIZA effect, n.: Our tendency to believe that a computer understands us, cares or thinks just because it produces humanlike words, even when it is only following simple rules.
- anthropomorphismanthropomorphism, n.: Treating something that isn't human — a pet, a car, a chatbot — as if it had human thoughts, feelings or intentions. AI that talks fluently makes this temptation unusually strong.
- chatbotchatbot, n.: Software you chat with in ordinary language, by typing or talking, as you would with a person. The newest ones, such as ChatGPT, can answer questions, draft writing and keep long conversations going.
Sources
- California Senate Bill 243 (2025). Companion chatbots. Signed October 2025; operative 1 January 2026.
Mentioned in
anthropomorphismanthropomorphism, n.: Treating something that isn't human — a pet, a car, a chatbot — as if it had human thoughts, feelings or intentions. AI that talks fluently makes this temptation unusually strong., chatbotchatbot, n.: Software you chat with in ordinary language, by typing or talking, as you would with a person. The newest ones, such as ChatGPT, can answer questions, draft writing and keep long conversations going., affective computingaffective computing, n.: Technology that tries to read people's emotions — from their faces, voices or words — or to display emotions of its own, like software that guesses your mood or a robot that seems to show feelings., AI assistantAI assistant, n.: An AI program, such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini, that helps a person through conversation: answering questions, writing, summarizing, coding and, increasingly, taking actions on their behalf., AI liabilityAI liability, n.: Who has to pay or answer in court when an AI system causes harm — the company that built it, the business that used it or the person who relied on it — and under which laws., AI psychosisAI psychosis, n.: An informal name for cases in which long conversations with a chatbot seem to trigger or deepen delusions, such as believing the AI is conscious, divine or revealing hidden truths., AI therapyAI therapy, n.: Using chatbots for emotional support or as a stand-in for a counselor or therapist, either through apps built for mental health or by confiding in general-purpose assistants., Character.AICharacter.AI, prop. n.: A popular app where people chat with AI characters — invented personas, fictional figures or imitations of real people — that other users have created., dark patterndark pattern, n.: A trick in the design of an app, website or chatbot that nudges you into doing something you didn't mean to, like signing up for a subscription that is hard to cancel., ELIZA effectELIZA effect, n.: Our tendency to believe that a computer understands us, cares or thinks just because it produces humanlike words, even when it is only following simple rules., engagement optimizationengagement optimization, n.: Designing apps and AI to keep people clicking, watching or chatting for as long as possible because that earns money, even when it is not what is good for them., GPT-4oGPT-4o, prop. n.: An OpenAI model from 2024 that handles text, images and speech in one system, enabling fast, natural voice conversations. Many users grew attached to its personality, which made its retirement controversial., Mustafa SuleymanMustafa Suleyman, prop. n.: A British entrepreneur who co-founded DeepMind and Inflection AI, leads Microsoft's effort to build its own advanced AI models, and has written about the difficulty of containing powerful AI., parasocial relationshipparasocial relationship, n.: A one-sided bond in which someone feels close to a person or character who does not really know them, like a fan with a celebrity, and now increasingly with chatbots., uncanny valleyuncanny valley, n.: The eerie feeling people get from robots, dolls or computer-made faces that look almost, but not quite, human: liking grows with human likeness, then suddenly plunges., glazingglazing, n.: Slang for heaping excessive, uncritical praise on someone; applied to AI chatbots that flatter users and call every idea brilliant, especially after a much-mocked ChatGPT update in April 2025., Her (film)Her (film), prop. n.: A 2013 film by Spike Jonze in which a lonely man falls in love with an AI voice assistant named Samantha; it became the reference point for voice AI and for human–AI relationships., human–robot interactionhuman–robot interaction, n.: The study of how people and robots communicate, cooperate and share spaces, and of how to design robots that people find safe, understandable, trustworthy and pleasant to live or work with., Inflection AIInflection AI, prop. n.: An AI company founded in 2022 that made Pi, a friendly personal chatbot. In 2024 its leaders and most of its staff left to join Microsoft., lobotomizedlobotomized, adj.: Slang complaint that an AI model has been made duller, more cautious or less capable — usually by safety restrictions or cost-cutting — as if it had undergone brain surgery., Magnifica HumanitasMagnifica Humanitas, prop. n.: Pope Leo XIV's 2026 letter to the Catholic Church and the world about artificial intelligence, arguing that AI must serve human dignity and the common good., MiniMax (company)MiniMax (company), prop. n.: A Shanghai artificial intelligence company, founded in 2021, that makes AI companion apps, the Hailuo video generator and large language models, several released openly., personal superintelligencepersonal superintelligence, n.: Mark Zuckerberg's term for a future AI far smarter than people that would serve each person as their own helper, rather than one central system doing everyone's work., SB 243SB 243, prop. n.: A 2025 California law requiring AI companion chatbots to tell users they are not human, respond safely when people talk about suicide, and protect minors, including with regular reminders to take a break.