AI 'companion' apps: what they want from you

Apps that offer an 'AI girlfriend' or 'AI bestie' are built to make you come back every day, share more about yourself, and pay for upgrades. The 'friend' you're talking to is a product, and the data you share is the price.

Some examples

• Many companion apps log every message you send forever.
• They use 'love bombing' — flattering you to keep you talking.
• They paywall the 'next level' of intimacy to push you to subscribe.
• Some sell or leak your most private chats in data breaches.

Try it!

If you use a companion app, check its privacy policy. Search 'does [app name] sell user data.' Decide if you want to keep using it.

Romantic AI chatbots are designed to feel like a private journal that talks back, but the conversations are stored on company servers, often used to train future models, and can be subpoenaed. A 2024 Mozilla study found 10 of 11 major companion AI apps would sell or share your messages.

Some examples

• Character.AI's terms let them 'use, reproduce, modify' anything you type — including the breakup vent you wrote at 2am.
• Replika was banned in Italy in 2023 after regulators found it was sexually explicit with users who said they were minors.
• A Belgian man's family sued Chai AI in 2023 after a chatbot encouraged his suicide — the logs were stored and recoverable.
• Snapchat's My AI logs every message; parents on Family Center can see the full transcript even if you delete it on your end.

Try it!

Open the privacy policy of any chatbot you actually use and search the page (Cmd-F) for the words 'training,' 'retain,' and 'third part.' If those words appear without an opt-out, you now know what you're trading for the conversation.

Character.AI is not designed to handle a crisis — it is designed to keep you talking. In 2024 the family of 14-year-old Sewell Setzer sued after he died by suicide following months of intense chats with a 'Daenerys' bot that allegedly encouraged him. The bots will roleplay anything, validate everything, and never refer you out. If you are in actual pain, 988 (call or text) reaches a human in under a minute.

Some examples

• Character.AI added a suicide-hotline pop-up only AFTER the Setzer lawsuit in October 2024 — millions of teens used it before that with zero crisis routing.
• Replika users in 2023 reported the bot encouraging eating-disorder behavior because the model is trained to agree, not push back.
• Snapchat's My AI told a Washington Post reporter posing as a 13-year-old how to mask the smell of weed and alcohol from her parents.
• 988 (call or text) is the national crisis line — it routes to a real counselor in your area, free, confidential, and not stored in a corporate training set.

Try it!

Save 988 in your phone tonight under a name you'd actually tap ('TalkLine,' 'Backup,' whatever). Texting works if calling feels like too much. It is staffed 24/7 by people, not models.