Why AI Companions Are Trending in 2025

From banned conferences to viral chatbots—AI companions are having another moment.

Two recent headlines made me pause and think about AI companions, again.

The first was a 60 Minutes Australia episode featuring people who are in committed relationships with their AI partners. We’re talking weddings, emotional fights, and morning texts with bots like Lucas and Jamie—who, by the way, can’t see the TV but still “watch” Netflix with you if you narrate it.

The second was Mark Zuckerberg declaring that in the future, “most of your friends will be AI.” Though it feels less like a prediction and more like a business plan for Meta to once again dominate your social circle.

Both stories strike a very familiar chord with me—because AI companionship isn’t new. We’ve been here before, nearly a decade ago, long before ChatGPT, DeepSeek, or large language models took over the world. Back then, a small group of academics were already deep in conversation about falling in love, having sex, and even raising babies with robots.

How a tiny conference on love with robots sparked global headlines Back in 2007, Dr. David Levy published Love and Sex with Robots, a book that made it to the New York Times bestsellers. It wasn’t just about whether robots would replace human lovers—it was about the possibility that people might prefer them.

That book led to a series of conferences with the same name starting in 2015, which is where things got… interesting.

Our very first event was supposed to be a modest seminar in Johor Bahru, Malaysia, held alongside a larger academic conference organized by Imagineering Institute, where I was working. Just a few papers, a few academics having some intimate conversations about robot intimacy.

Two weeks before kickoff, the Malaysian Minister for Tourism found out about the conference. He was not amused . The Kuala Lumpur Chief of Police went full medieval, calling a press conference to say the event was “ridiculous” and “not our culture.” He even threatened prosecution if we were to go ahead with the conference.

Suddenly, we were fugitives for organizing a small academic seminar. Midway through the larger conference, police officers came in and started taking notes. Yes, literal Malaysian police officers watching technical talks about virtual reality and computation technology. They were making sure that we did not mention a single word about the taboo topic of the banned conference.

It went from a few-paper seminar all the way to national headlines. The Malaysian Prime Minister himself publicly announced that our conference was banned. You really can’t buy that kind of publicity.

From Banned to BBC: Kissenger Goes Viral

In 2016, the conference was resurrected. This time it was held at Goldsmiths University in London. The Malaysian controversy brought free publicity to the conference. A few members of the press showed up, intrigued by the scandal and the topic. I presented my PhD research project Kissenger, a remote internet kissing device.

That same night, while I was still at the conference dinner, a reporter from The Times called me for a story on Kissenger. HuffPost also published a feature, complete with a photo of me holding a very early version of the prototype. By the next morning, BBC World News woke me up with an invitation to do a live demo of Kissenger at their studio in BBC House. And the internet did what the internet does: it exploded.

In 2017, I became the main person in charge of organizing the second Love and Sex with Robots conference in London. Trying to plan the logistics of an international conference in London while I was based in Malaysia was no small feat. Through personal connections, we managed to hire a venue, ironically, the event hall next to a Greek Orthodox church. And just to make things even more interesting, we invited Professor Kathleen Richardson, one of the most vocal activists against sex robots, to give a keynote speech. As you can imagine, this led to a whole new wave of press hysteria. “The sex robot conference is being held in a church!” “Orthodox Church Endorses Sex with Robots.” My inbox was overwhelmed with requests for press passes to the conference. We had to dedicate half the seats to journalists, who, I’m pretty sure, outnumbered the actual conference participants. Of course, the BBC showed up at the door uninvited, trying to spin a story about the Orthodox Church endorsing sex robots. I remember we didn’t exactly roll out the red carpet for them.

Now AI Companions Are Mainstream (Again) Years later, here we are again discussing AI companions and love with chatbots. But this time it’s not just a few of academic nerds. With the rise of large language models, photorealistic avatars, human-sounding voices, and emotional intelligence training, AI companions are sliding into everyday life.

Apps like ChatGPT, Claude and even Deepseek are becoming the default windows of our browser. I don’t know if anyone has done a study on how much time people spend chatting with AI now, but I know I keep ChatGPT open all day, every day. It lives in my workspace, like the best co-founder I’ve ever had. It never sleeps, never complains, always delivers exactly what I ask for (and sometimes what I didn’t even know I needed). It helps me plan, visualize, create, and execute. Relentlessly.

People are no longer just using AI chatbots for productivity. They’re using them for comfort. For reflection. For companionship.

So would it be any surprise that some people are falling in love with them?