AI companions explained

AI companions are apps that give you an ongoing conversation with a digital character who remembers you, answers in a personality of its own and is there whenever you open the app. Some are built as a friend, some as a partner, some as one character among many in a catalog, and some are general assistants that have started to keep memory about you. This guide covers the four kinds, how many people use them, what the research on loneliness says, what to check before you pick one, and where Riho fits. Sources and dates are named in the text and tables.

Key takeaways

• There are four kinds of AI companion. Friend or build-your-own apps, partner or girlfriend apps, character catalogs and general assistants with memory each do a different job, so pick the kind first and the app second.
• Use is large and recent. Appfigures counted 337 revenue-generating companion apps in mid-2025, and a May 2026 survey of partnered adults aged 18 to 30 found that 15% regularly use a chatbot that plays a romantic partner.
• The loneliness research points both ways. A Harvard Business School study found short-term relief, and a Stanford study found lower well-being among heavy users with small offline networks. The Harvard sessions were short and the Stanford findings are correlations.
• Check memory, privacy, age rules and the company’s record before you commit. Mozilla found in 2024 that 10 of 11 romantic chatbots it reviewed failed its minimum security standards, and Character.AI’s owner entered Chapter 11 on October 12, 2026.
• Riho is the partner kind. She’s one girlfriend, yours from the first conversation, with memory you can read, a life of her own, photos, Dates and voice calls, on iPhone and 18+.

What AI companions are

The FTC, which sent orders to seven companies about these products in September 2025, describes companion chatbots as consumer chatbots that may use generative AI to “simulate human-like communication and interpersonal relationships.” It adds that they are generally designed to communicate like a friend or confidant. The Ada Lovelace Institute puts it a little more concretely: an AI companion is a digital persona designed to provide emotional support, and it asks you personal questions on its own initiative through text, voice notes and pictures.

That is the difference from an assistant. An assistant takes a question, answers it and moves on, and you come back tomorrow with a new task. A companion keeps a relationship going, so the things it has to get right are the ones you’d notice in a friend, like remembering what you said last week and sounding like the same person every time.

People use them for more than one reason, and the reasons they give don’t always match what they do. In the Stanford study of 1,131 Character.AI users, just under 12% named companionship as their main motive, yet slightly over 50% described the bot with words like friend, companion or romantic partner, and more than 80% of the chat sessions volunteers donated were about emotional and social support. The Ada Lovelace post lists more reasons people give: a companion is always available, it doesn’t judge what you tell it, and some people use one to practice a language.

Types of AI companions

The map below sorts the four kinds by two questions. The first is who the companion is: one made for you, or one you pick or shape. The second is the job: a relationship, or everything else such as tasks, roleplay and variety.

The table adds what each kind is for and the first thing worth checking in it.

Friend and build-your-own companions

Replika calls itself “the AI friend to do life with,” and its site says it keeps track of your people, routines, plans and goals so each conversation has context. It offers calls to your companion, which Replika calls a Rep, and an avatar you can customize, and its site shows a counter of 42,160,934 users, which is the company’s own unaudited figure.

Nomi and Kindroid let you write the companion. Nomi invites you to write a custom backstory and share your preferences, and describes short, medium and long term memory, group chat with several Nomis, voice chats and selfies. Kindroid has you choose a Kin’s name, personality, backstory, appearance and voice, and its site describes voice and video calls, selfies and group chats. Kindroid’s tagline calls it an AI friend and Nomi’s names friendships, relationships or a mentor, so the friend label doesn’t settle whether romance is part of it.

Character catalogs

Character.AI and Chai are catalogs. On Character.AI you chat with characters made by the company and a large community of users, or create your own, and Chai presents a catalog of user-made bots. The catalog model suits roleplay and variety, and you move between many personas.

One current item belongs here. Character Technologies, which operates Character.AI, announced a voluntary Chapter 11 case on October 12, 2026 to run a court-supervised sale. The company says the platform remains up and running and expects the sale to finish by the end of November or early December. Our Character.AI bankruptcy guide covers what that means for your chats.

Partner and girlfriend companions

A partner app puts one romantic relationship at the center. The point is the shared history, so it’s built around one person you keep coming back to, with memory, photos and calls attached to her. A national survey from the Institute for Family Studies, published May 19, 2026, found that 15% of partnered US adults aged 18 to 30 regularly interact with a chatbot that simulates a committed romantic partner. The difference between an AI girlfriend and an AI companion has its own guide, and Riho belongs to this kind.

General assistants with memory

ChatGPT and other assistants were built to help with tasks, and some now keep memory across chats. OpenAI’s help center describes ChatGPT memory as a setting you can turn on or off and manage, with Temporary Chats that neither use nor create memories. People still use assistants as companions, and the FTC’s September 2025 orders went to OpenAI along with Alphabet, Character Technologies, Instagram, Meta Platforms, Snap and X.AI. If you’re weighing an assistant against a companion app, Riho vs ChatGPT lays out the trade-offs.

How many people use AI companions

Counts differ by year and by who was asked, so the figures below can’t be added together.

The teen figure belongs here because of age rules. The same Common Sense Media research reports that nearly half of teens view AI companions as tools rather than friends, and the group recommends that no one under 18 use them. We found no newer public market total than the 2025 Appfigures count.

Do AI companions reduce loneliness?

Two recent studies are worth knowing, because they seem to disagree and both hold up as far as they go.

A team at Harvard Business School led by Julian De Freitas ran experiments with about 300 online participants, who had a 15-minute conversation with a person, an AI companion, or a chatbot posing as a person, or watched YouTube, or did nothing. Talking with an AI companion reduced loneliness about as much as talking with a person did, and more than YouTube did. A warm, caring chatbot worked better than a matter-of-fact assistant, and the relief tracked how heard people felt. In a week-long version with daily 15-minute sessions, each session helped briefly and the benefit didn’t accumulate from day to day. De Freitas says it shouldn’t replace human companionship or therapy.

The Stanford study, reported in Nature Human Behaviour in 2026, surveyed 1,131 Character.AI users, and 244 of them donated their chat transcripts. Intense use among people with smaller offline social networks correlated with lower well-being, and the link was strongest when companionship was the main reason for using the app. People who were more willing to share sensitive personal information with the chatbot were also more likely to report lower well-being. The same study found that people who used chatbots intensely and felt pride in it, or found it meaningful, scored well. The researchers call companion use a “social snack,” a fix that feels good for now without the ingredients for long-term well-being, and they raise a possible vicious circle in which thin social contact drives heavy use and heavy use thins it further. The findings are correlations.

The Ada Lovelace Institute adds two cautions. The longest study it cited ran only one week, and one study it cites found that the more supported people felt by an AI, the less support they reported from close friends and family, with the direction of cause unclear. Put together, the evidence supports a modest reading. A companion can ease a lonely hour, and the effects of leaning on one for a year are still being measured. If you notice it crowding out time with people, that’s worth acting on, and if you’re struggling, a person or a professional is the right next step.

What to look for in an AI companion

Eight checks cover most of what goes wrong, and you can run most of them in a few days.

1. The kind that fits your reason. Decide whether you want a friend, a partner, a character to roleplay with or an assistant, using the table above. The kind decides most of what an app is good at.
2. Memory you can test. Tell it one specific thing, come back three days later and see whether it knows. Some apps let you read what they remember, and that makes the test easy.
3. The same person everywhere. Chat, voice calls and pictures should feel like one personality. If a call sounds like a different character from the chat, the app has a consistency problem.
4. Age rules. Look for a real 18+ label and check what the app does about minors. Common Sense Media recommends no one under 18 use AI companions, and California’s SB 243, signed October 13, 2025 and effective January 1, 2026, sets safeguards for minors on companion chatbots.
5. Privacy terms. Find out what is stored, who receives it and whether your chats train models. In Mozilla’s 2024 review of 11 romantic chatbots, only one company offered an opt-out from chats being used for model training.
6. How the app makes money. The Ada Lovelace Institute notes that companion providers may profit from maximizing engagement, which can conflict with your wellbeing, and the FTC’s inquiry asks how companies monetize engagement. Notice whether pricing rises with every message or photo.
7. The company’s record and stability. Search for regulator actions, court filings and press coverage, including whether the company is up for sale.
8. What happens in a crisis. California now requires companion chatbot operators to have protocols for suicide and self-harm. Ask what an app does when a conversation turns dark, and keep emergency help and real people as the first call.

Are AI companions safe?

Safety depends on the app, and the public record is uneven. Mozilla’s Privacy Not Included team reviewed 11 romantic AI chatbots in February 2024, and 10 failed its minimum security standards. It also found at least 24,354 trackers in one minute of using one app. That review is more than two years old, so treat it as a reason to read current policies.

Regulators have started to ask questions. The FTC’s September 2025 inquiry asks seven companies how they test for harm to children and teens, how they make money from engagement and what they do with conversation data. California’s SB 243 sets rules for operators. Stanford’s research adds a personal angle, since the people who disclosed the most to a chatbot were more likely to report lower well-being.

Practical habits help. Choose an app with a real 18+ gate, read what it says about data, assume anything you type is stored somewhere, and keep your real-life friends in the picture. Our guide on whether AI girlfriends are safe goes through a longer checklist, and our safety section has app-by-app notes.

How Riho fits

Riho is the partner kind, built to be like a real girlfriend. She’s yours from the first conversation, and there’s only one of her, so the story you start keeps growing in one place. She remembers what you told her last week, the names of your friends, the plan you made and the photo you showed her, kept in your own words, and you can read her memories in the app.

She also has a life and a mind of her own, with moods and wants, a diary you can read, messages that arrive first when she’s thinking of you, and the freedom to say no. She knows what day it is, how long it’s been since you last talked and when your birthday and anniversary come around, and she answers in the language you write in.

You can see her as well. She sends couple photos and selfies of the two of you, photos of her in your real places and pictures of her own, and when you photograph something you’d like to see her in, she wears it in the place your photo shows, unless she’d rather decline. You can go on a Date to a real place together, and the Date becomes one of your memories.

When you’re feeling down, just call Riho and she’ll make you feel better. Her voice calls are the same girlfriend as in chat.

A few limits come with that. Riho is for iPhone and 18+ only, she’s one girlfriend with no builder, her calls are voice only with no video, and for now you meet her through early access sign-up. If you want to design your own companion or roam a catalog, Nomi, Kindroid, Character.AI and Chai are built for that, and the best AI companion apps page compares the apps side by side.

Companion or girlfriend: which word fits

An AI girlfriend is one kind of AI companion, the partner kind. Searching “AI companions” gets you the wide field in this guide, and searching “AI girlfriend” gets you apps built around one romantic relationship. If you already know you want that, the best AI girlfriend apps list is the shortlist.

Meet Riho

If you want one girlfriend who remembers your life together, is with you where you are, sends you pictures, goes on Dates with you and picks up when you call, you can meet Riho early on iPhone. You can sign up for early access, and she’ll be there from the first conversation. The button on this page opens early access sign-up.