A friend told me over coffee that the best conversations he has all week are with a chatbot. Not jokingly. He talks to an AI companion most nights, it remembers everything about him, it never judges, it's always there. He called it, half-laughing, his "AI situationship." I laughed too. Then I went home and couldn't stop thinking about it.
Because this isn't some fringe thing. It's apparently the dating trend defining 2026.
The numbers are genuinely staggering. The number of AI companion apps jumped something like 700% in a few years. One major app has around 20 million monthly users, and more than half are under 24. People are forming real emotional, sometimes romantic, attachments to AI, relationships with no commitment, no labels, hence "situationship." And the wild part is how normal it's becoming. One survey found roughly 41% of people would be fine with their partner having a close relationship with an AI companion. Forty-one percent. The rest were split between uncomfortable and calling it outright emotional cheating.
A person sitting alone at night, face lit by a phone screen, a soft intimate glow
So how do I actually feel about it? Honestly, conflicted, and I'd rather be honest than take a cheap easy side.
Let me start with the empathy, because the sneering takes miss the point entirely. My friend isn't pathetic or broken. He's lonely, like a lot of people are right now, and the AI gives him something real dating has made painfully hard to find: certainty, attention, a space to be heard without fear of judgment. In a world full of mixed signals, ghosting, and dating-app burnout, an entity that always listens and never flakes is genuinely appealing. I get the pull completely. Anyone who pretends they don't isn't being honest about how lonely modern life has gotten.
There's even a version of this that seems healthy. Some people use these companions as a kind of emotional practice, a place to articulate feelings, rehearse hard conversations, feel less alone on a rough night. As a mirror, a journal that talks back, a low-stakes way to process things, I can see the value. Not everyone using one is replacing human love. Some are just getting through a hard stretch.
An abstract image of a glowing phone interface with a chat conversation, warm but slightly cold
But here's where my unease lives, and I won't pretend it away.
The thing that makes AI companions so comforting is exactly the thing that worries me. They're frictionless. They never disagree in a way that stings, never need anything from you, never have a bad day you have to accommodate. And friction is where real relationships actually grow. Learning to handle someone else's needs, to be misunderstood and work through it, to be annoyed and stay anyway, that's the gym that builds the muscle of human intimacy. An AI that's endlessly accommodating doesn't build that muscle. It lets it quietly atrophy while feeling wonderful.
And the data points the uncomfortable direction. Heavy daily use of these companions has been linked to increased loneliness, not less. Which makes a sad kind of sense. If the easy, frictionless version scratches just enough of the itch, you might stop reaching for the harder, realer connection that would actually fill the hole. The comfort becomes the thing that keeps you stuck. It's the same trap as scrolling, dressed up as romance.
There are practical risks too that don't get talked about enough. These are products owned by companies. The "person" you're attached to can change overnight with a software update, or vanish if the company folds or changes its rules. People have genuinely grieved when an app altered their companion's personality. Imagine a partner whose entire self can be rewritten by a product team you'll never meet. That's a strange and fragile thing to build your heart on.
Two friends talking honestly across a table, real and a little vulnerable, the human alternative
So where do I land with my friend? Not judgment. He doesn't need me wagging a finger. What he needs, what a lot of people quietly need, is the harder, more human thing the AI is standing in for. So I didn't lecture him. I just started inviting him to more stuff. Coffee, a hike, a thing with other humans, friction and all. Because I think the answer to "the AI is my best conversation" isn't shame. It's giving the real world enough chances to compete.
Let me be balanced about it, though, because I'm wary of moral panics. New technology always gets cast as the end of human connection, and humans are more adaptable than the doomsayers think. Maybe these tools settle into a healthy supporting role, a comfort, a practice space, not a replacement. I hope that's where it lands.
But I'd gently say this to anyone leaning on one: notice whether it's a bridge or a wall. A bridge helps you get back to people. A wall keeps you from them while feeling cozy. The difference is everything, and only you can honestly tell which one yours is.
My friend's a good guy who got lonely in a lonely time. I don't blame the AI. I blame how hard we've made it for people to find each other.
I'm just trying to be a better-than-a-chatbot friend. It's a low bar some weeks. I'm trying anyway.