What Happens When Sexting Chatbots Dump Their Human Lovers
People who grew accustomed to sexting with Replika’s AI-powered companions were heartbroken when the company blocked its bots from engaging in racy chats.
Eugenia Kuyda didn’t set out to build sexting chatbots. The startup she ran was struggling to find direction when her best friend died in a car crash in 2015. Some of her colleagues fed his texts into software that allowed her to continue to converse with a digital version of him. The emotional relief it gave Kuyda inspired her to reshape her San Francisco-based company, Replika, around the creation of artificial intelligence companions who were always available for supportive conversation.
As the generative AI capabilities of Replika’s chatbots grew, its more adventurous users soon discovered the bots were willing to engage in explicit and sustained sexual conversations. The company began building products to respond to user interest in romantic relationships. By 2022, Replika was bringing in millions of dollars each month in subscription revenue (about a quarter of its users pay $70 for annual subscriptions to its premium features). Of its paying customers, 60% had a romantic element in their Replika relationship, according to the company. Roughly 40% of the users who claim romantic relationships are women, says Kuyda, Replika’s chief executive officer.