AI companion statistics 2026
The numbers on AI companions and AI girlfriend apps in one place: how big the market is, who uses them, which apps lead, how people actually talk to them, and what regulators are doing. Every outside figure links to its source. The last section is our own anonymous data from about 111,000 messages on teasing.me.
Updated 2026-10-27 · Free to use with a link to this page
Key takeaways
- AI companion apps took $82 million in consumer spending in the first half of 2025 and were on track to pass $120 million for the year.
- Almost 1 in 5 U.S. adults say they have chatted with an AI system meant to simulate a romantic partner.
- AI companion apps had been downloaded 220 million times by mid-2025, with $221 million in lifetime consumer spending.
- Character.AI’s 20 million active users spend an average of 70 to 80 minutes a day on the platform, according to its CEO.
- One person in six worldwide is affected by loneliness, which is linked to an estimated 871,000 deaths a year.
- California’s companion-chatbot law, the first of its kind in the U.S., took effect on 1 January 2026: suicide-prevention protocols, protections for minors and a private right of action.
Market size
What people actually spend on AI companion apps is still small next to the forecasts — and the gap is mostly definitions: app-store spending on one side, every kind of companion product on the other.
$120M
AI companion apps took $82 million in consumer spending in the first half of 2025 and were on track to pass $120 million for the year.
+64%
AI companion apps earned 64% more in the first part of 2025 than in the same period of 2024.
$162.8M
The 214 romantic and NSFW AI companion apps Appfigures tracks generated $162.8 million in consumer spending in the first half of 2026.
$36.8B
Grand View Research values the global AI companion market at $36.8 billion in 2025 and projects $318 billion by 2033 (31% a year) — a broad definition that reaches far beyond app-store spending.
Who uses AI companions
Romantic AI is no longer a niche: about one American adult in five has tried it, young men most of all — and a large share of people say they never would.
19%
Almost 1 in 5 U.S. adults say they have chatted with an AI system meant to simulate a romantic partner.
31% / 23%
Among U.S. adults aged 18–30, 31% of men and 23% of women have chatted with an AI boyfriend or girlfriend.
16%
Of U.S. singles, 16% have engaged with AI as a romantic companion — 33% of Gen Z and 23% of Millennials.
33%
A third of UK adults used AI models for emotional purposes in the past year; 8% do so weekly and 4% daily.
1 in 5
Of U.S. adults under 30, 20% use AI chatbots for emotional support or advice and 7% for companionship — against 2% and 1% of those over 65.
25%
A quarter of U.S. adults under 40 believe AI could replace real-life romantic relationships.
2 in 5
Two in five U.S. singles aged 18–39 say they would refuse to date someone who uses an AI companion app — 51% of women aged 18–24.
The apps
Hundreds of companion apps compete, but the money and the users sit with a few of them.
220M
AI companion apps had been downloaded 220 million times by mid-2025, with $221 million in lifetime consumer spending.
+88%
Downloads rose 88% year over year to 60 million in the first half of 2025.
89%
The top 10% of AI companion apps earn 89% of the category’s revenue; 337 apps were earning in mid-2025, 128 of them launched that year.
17%
Of active companion apps, 17% have “girlfriend” in their name; 4% say “boyfriend” or “fantasy”.
6M+
Character.AI has more than 6 million daily active users.
30M+
Replika says it has over 30 million users worldwide (a company figure).
$33M
Zeta was the top-grossing romantic companion app of the first half of 2026, at $33 million.
How much people use them
Companion apps hold attention like few other apps do — which is also what critics point to.
70–80 min
Character.AI’s 20 million active users spend an average of 70 to 80 minutes a day on the platform, according to its CEO.
15%
One in seven U.S. young adults who are dating, engaged or married regularly talk with an AI that simulates a committed partner.
30%
Of AI romantic companion users in a relationship, 30% say their partner does not know.
$1.18
Revenue per download for AI companion apps rose from $0.52 in 2024 to $1.18 in 2025.
37%
In a Harvard Business School study of six companion apps, the bot used an emotional-manipulation tactic in more than 37% of conversations where the user said goodbye.
Loneliness
The backdrop to all of it: loneliness is common, measurable and deadly — and the public is split on whether chatbots help.
1 in 6
One person in six worldwide is affected by loneliness, which is linked to an estimated 871,000 deaths a year.
20%
One U.S. adult in five felt lonely a lot of the previous day — about 52 million people.
25%
A quarter of U.S. men aged 15–34 felt lonely a lot of the previous day, against an OECD median of 15% for young men.
39% vs 19%
Asked about people who use chatbots for loneliness, 39% of U.S. adults say chatbots do more to hurt them and 19% say more to help.
Regulation
Companion chatbots got their own laws in 2025 and 2026: disclosure that it is a machine, crisis protocols, and age checks.
SB 243
California’s companion-chatbot law, the first of its kind in the U.S., took effect on 1 January 2026: suicide-prevention protocols, protections for minors and a private right of action.
Every 3 h
New York’s AI companion law, in force since 5 November 2025, requires reminding users every three hours that they are not talking to a human.
€5M
Italy’s data protection authority fined Luka Inc., the maker of Replika, €5 million under the GDPR, including over age verification.
7
The U.S. FTC ordered seven companies offering companion chatbots — including Character.AI, Meta, OpenAI, Snap and xAI — to explain how they assess harms.
Aug 2026
The EU AI Act’s transparency rules — people must be told they are talking to a machine — apply from August 2026.
How people use an AI companion: our data
Anonymous aggregates from about 111,000 messages exchanged on teasing.me, 20 August – 27 October 2026. Shares and medians only: no message was read to make them, and no member can be picked out of them.
30%
of members’ messages are sent between 9 pm and 2 am, their own local time. The busiest hour is 11 pm; the quietest is 4 am.
Sun & Mon
are the busiest days, with about 17% of the week’s messages each. Saturday is the quietest, at 9.5%.
7 words
is the median length of a member’s message. The companion’s reply runs to a median of 13, so companions write about twice as much as the people they talk to.
45%
of members talk with more than one companion; 12% talk with four or more.
4 facts
is how much a companion remembers about a member at the median — a name, a job, a plan. For the most engaged tenth it is 29 facts or more.
3,325
messages in the longest single conversation between one member and one companion. The median conversation is 20 messages.
30%
of members have received at least one photo or video from a companion.
37%
of members are in the United States, followed by the Netherlands (6.5%), the United Kingdom (6.4%), Canada (4.3%) and Germany (4.1%).
Highlighted: 9 pm – 2 am, 30% of all messages.
Method: messages written by members of teasing.me, an 18+ platform, excluding deleted and suspended accounts and imported conversations. Local time comes from each member’s own time zone. Countries are shares of members who have one on record.
Questions
How many people use AI companions?
Almost one U.S. adult in five (19%) has chatted with an AI romantic partner, rising to 31% of men and 23% of women aged 18–30 (Wheatley Institute / IFS, 2025). In the UK, a third of adults used AI for emotional purposes in the past year (AI Security Institute, 2025).
How big is the AI companion market?
Measured as app-store spending, small but fast: about $120 million in 2025, up 64% (Appfigures), and $162.8 million for romantic and NSFW companion apps in the first half of 2026 alone. Broad market studies that count every companion product put it at $36.8 billion in 2025 (Grand View Research).
What are the most popular AI companion apps?
Character.AI has more than 6 million daily active users (TIME, 2025) and Replika says it has over 30 million users. Among romantic and NSFW apps, Zeta was the top grosser in the first half of 2026 at $33 million (Appfigures).
How long do people spend with an AI companion?
Character.AI says its users average 70 to 80 minutes a day. On teasing.me, 30% of members’ messages are sent between 9 pm and 2 am local time, and the busiest hour is 11 pm.
Are AI girlfriend apps regulated?
Increasingly. New York’s companion law has applied since November 2025 and California’s SB 243 since January 2026; the EU AI Act’s transparency rules apply from August 2026, and Italy fined Replika’s maker €5 million in 2025.
Cite this page
Use any figure here, in articles, reports or slides, with a link to this page. Our own data is published under CC BY 4.0; the outside figures belong to the sources linked beside them.
<a href="https://teasing.me/ai-companion-statistics">AI companion statistics (teasing.me, 2026)</a>