A look at the rise of AI companionship apps; a researcher found 206 on Apple's App Store and 253 on Google Play, with a total of 220M+ downloads as of July 2025
1. The first trend is a decline in people using dating apps like Tinder & Bumble. — 2. The rise of AI companion (aka AI girlfriend) apps. — 3. Using ChatGPT to write messages to people you're dating. … Paul Rietschka / @prietschka : Danger of using an LLM to badly simulate companionship to one side, we'll look back at this in a few years and shake our heads at how silly it all was. — No way there's a business model here, no way the compute consumption of a “companion” like this isn't immense. @hypervisible.blacksky.app : “Replika is one of an estimated 206 AI companion apps on the App Store and 253 on Google Play...”
This article tries to tackle three distinct trends but struggles to connect them. — 1. The first trend is a decline in people using dating apps like Tinder & Bumble. — 2. The rise of AI companion (aka AI girlfriend) apps. — 3. Using ChatGPT to write messages to people you'r…
Danger of using an LLM to badly simulate companionship to one side, we'll look back at this in a few years and shake our heads at how silly it all was. — No way there's a business model here, no way the compute consumption of a “companion” like this isn't immense.