翻訳待ち：AI Girlfriend Paradox: Actual users are more likely to call it cheating

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Home / Blog / The State of AI Romance in 2026 Original research · AI Girlfriend Coach The State of AI Romance in 2026: What 2,150 U.S. Adults Told Us Researched & written by Ranji Mercado · The Coach, aigirlfriend.coach Tap for more +Tap to close × Ranji Mercado · content writer & data researcher I run every page on this site the same way: experience first, write second. I subscribe with my own money, live in each app, log the dates, prices and screenshots, and only then write. Nothing here is a rewrite of someone else's article or a press kit. Every subscription paid myselfDates, screenshots, receiptsAffiliate links never change verdicts More about me and how I test → Fieldwork August 26 to 27, 2026 · Published September 1, 2026 · 1,709 responses analyzed Over the past year, I've gone deep into the AI companion industry. I've tracked more than 64 platforms, spent thousands of hours testing and interacting with them, and invested more than $3,000 in subscriptions and original research. Along the way, I've talked with the founders building these products and the people using them, and shared what I've learned directly with teams working to improve their platforms. But the deeper I got into the industry, the more I kept running into questions that product testing and reviews couldn't answer. Who uses AI companions, what draws people to them, can those relationships become emotionally real, and when does AI intimacy cross a line in a human relationship? To find out, we surveyed 2,150 U.S. adults about AI girlfriends, AI boyfriends, and romantic AI companions. After quality screening, 1,709 responses were included in the final analysis, giving us our own original AI companion data. Here's what we found. Key Takeaways From Our AI Companion Data 50.5% say AI romance can be cheating. Another 21.2% wouldn't call it cheating but would still be uncomfortable with it. Experience with AI companionship is linked to much stricter views of AI cheating. 80.6% of current users call it cheating, compared with 60.2% of former users and 44.0% of never-users. 56.6% point to loneliness and having someone to talk to as the main reason to use an AI companion. Just 10.3% choose affection, romance, or sex. Users of AI girlfriend or boyfriend apps were almost evenly split between men and women. Of the 422 current and former users, 50.7% were men and 49.3% were women. Millennials, not Gen Z, show the most future interest. 44.7% of Millennials would consider an AI girlfriend or boyfriend, compared with 31.6% of Gen X, 12.5% of Gen Z, and 8.6% of Boomers. Former users remain surprisingly open to coming back. 74.4% would consider using an AI girlfriend or boyfriend again, compared with only 11.7% of people who have never tried one. Interest in AI doesn't equal replacing humans. 52.2% prefer dating apps versus 7.8% who prefer an AI girlfriend or boyfriend, and 64.6% say AI could never replace a human relationship in their life. PDF · 41 pages Master Research Report Every table, statistical test, and the full questionnaire. Download PPTX · 28 slides Visual Research Deck The major findings, comparisons, and charts, ready to present. Download ZIP · PNG + SVG Charts & Infographics Every chart on this page, free to reuse with attribution. Download Section 1 Trying an AI Girlfriend or Boyfriend Seems to Change the Conversation AI girlfriends and boyfriends are still easy to think of as something most people have only heard about. But in our survey, a different picture emerges once we separate people who have actually tried one from those who have not. Half of the people who tried an AI girlfriend or boyfriend app stopped. Three in four of them would come back. Q: Have you ever used an AI girlfriend or AI boyfriend app? Would you consider using one in the future? Bases: 211 current users, 211 former users, 1,287 never-users. Source: AI Girlfriend Coach, AI Romance and Modern Relationships (2026). Survey of 2,150 U.S. adults, SurveyMonkey Audience, 26 to 27 August 2026. Figures use the 1,709 quality-screened responses. 422 respondents had tried an AI girlfriend or boyfriend app, and exactly half were still using one. That means 24.7% of the 1,709 analyzed respondents had first-hand experience with an AI girlfriend or boyfriend app: 12.3% were current users (211) and 12.3% were former users (211). The perfect split gives us two equally sized groups who had tried an AI girlfriend or boyfriend app, but only one was still using it. What former users told us next makes that difference much more interesting. 74.4% of former users would consider using an AI girlfriend or boyfriend again. For comparison, 96.2% of current users would consider future use. Among people who had never tried an AI girlfriend or boyfriend app, that number falls to just 11.7%. Former users therefore looked much more like current users than never-users when it came to future interest. Stopping use didn't necessarily mean closing the door on AI companionship. The survey can't tell us whether using an AI girlfriend or boyfriend app caused that openness or why former users stopped. But it does show a strong association between having experienced AI companionship and being willing to consider it again. That difference between experienced and never-users will show up again later, when we ask whether a relationship with an AI can count as cheating. Section 2 The Gender Gap Isn't Where You Might Expect It AI girlfriends are often framed as a product for men. But among respondents who had actually used an AI girlfriend or boyfriend app, the gender split was much closer than that stereotype suggests. The users are split down the middle. The gap is in what men and women want from an AI companion. Q: Have you ever used an AI girlfriend or AI boyfriend app? Would you consider using one in the future? Could you develop genuine romantic feelings for an AI? What would be the main reason for using an AI companion? Bases: 808 men, 899 women. Source: AI Girlfriend Coach, AI Romance and Modern Relationships (2026). Survey of 2,150 U.S. adults, SurveyMonkey Audience, 26 to 27 August 2026. Figures use the 1,709 quality-screened responses. "Open to romantic feelings" combines "could genuinely fall in love" and "maybe, if the AI became realistic enough." The 422 AI girlfriend and boyfriend app users were almost evenly split between men and women. Of current and former users, 50.7% were men (214) and 49.3% were women (208). That doesn't mean men and women had identical usage rates. 13.5% of men were current users compared with 11.3% of women. But it does challenge the idea that actual experience with AI companionship is overwhelmingly male. The more noticeable gender differences appeared not in who had tried one, but in how open men and women were to taking AI companionship further. Men showed greater interest in the romantic side of AI companionship. 34.2% of men would consider using an AI girlfriend or boyfriend in the future, compared with 26.0% of women. Men were also more open to developing romantic feelings for AI: 34.5% versus 24.5%. The largest gap appeared when respondents were asked why someone might use an AI companion. 16.0% of men chose affection, romance, or sex, compared with 5.2% of women. That's roughly three times as high, but there's another way to read the same number: 84% of men still chose something other than romance or sex. So the gender story isn't simply that AI companionship is "for men." The users in our survey were almost evenly split. Where men stood apart was in their greater openness to future use, romantic attachment, and the romantic or sexual appeal of AI companionship. And even there, romance and sex were not the main draw. The next section shows what was. Section 3 The Main Draw of AI Companionship Isn't Romance. It's Company. AI girlfriends and boyfriends naturally invite assumptions about romance, intimacy, and sex. But when we asked respondents why someone might use an AI companion, the answers pointed much more strongly toward companionship and emotional wellbeing. What would be the main reason for using an AI companion Base: all 1,709 analyzed responses. Single choice. Asked of every respondent as a hypothetical, not only of users. Source: AI Girlfriend Coach, AI Romance and Modern Relationships (2026). Survey of 2,150 U.S. adults, SurveyMonkey Audience, 26 to 27 August 2026. Figures use the 1,709 quality-screened responses. 56.6% chose having someone to talk to or feeling less alone. That was by far the most common answer, compared with 18.5% for improving mental health or coping with depression, 14.6% for confidence or self-esteem, and just 10.3% for affection, romance, or sex. In other words, respondents were more than five times as likely to choose company over romance or sex. Loneliness was also the leading answer across every subgroup we examined and across both major device groups. Even among men, romance and sex remained a minority motivation. Men were about three times as likely as women to choose affection, romance, or sex: 16.0% compared with 5.2%. But as we saw in the previous section, that still means 84% of men chose something else. The broader pattern is therefore difficult to reduce to the stereotype of people seeking an artificial girlfriend or boyfriend for romance or sex. Respondents saw the appeal much more in having someone there. This question was hypothetical and asked of all respondents, so it tells us what people believe might draw someone to an AI companion rather than the actual motivations of users. But if companionship is the main perceived appeal, it raises a more complicated question: what happens when that companionship starts to feel emotionally real? Section 4 AI Romance Gets Complicated When We Start Calling It Cheating There is no second person in an AI relationship. Yet when we asked respondents how they would view a partner's romantic or sexual relationship with an AI, many applied boundaries that sound remarkably similar to those governing human relationships. Half of respondents said AI romance can count as cheating. 50.5% (863 of 1,709) said it could be cheating. Another 21.2% wouldn't use the word cheating but would still be uncomfortable with it. That means 71.7% placed some kind of relationship boundary around AI romance, while only 28.3% dismissed the issue on the basis that an AI isn't a real person. Where respondents drew the line also mattered. 33.4% said any romantic or sexual AI interaction counts as cheating, while 17.1% said it only becomes cheating when emotional attachment develops. For that latter group, the machine itself wasn't necessarily the problem. The attachment was. Would a partner's romantic or sexual relationship with an AI be cheating? Base: all 1,709 analyzed responses. Single choice, so the four figures sum to 100%. Source: AI Girlfriend Coach, AI Romance and Modern Relationships (2026). Survey of 2,150 U.S. adults, SurveyMonkey Audience, 26 to 27 August 2026. Figures use the 1,709 quality-screened responses. The people closest to AI romance were actually the most likely to call it cheating. Among people open to developing romantic feelings for an AI, 73.0% said AI romance could count as cheating, compared with 41.2% of those who said they could never develop those feelings. The same pattern appeared with actual experience. 80.6% of current AI girlfriend or boyfriend app users called it cheating, compared with 60.2% of former users and 44.0% of never-users. It's a counterintuitive result. The people most willing to take AI companionship seriously were not more likely to dismiss AI romance as harmless. They were more likely to treat it as something consequential enough to become a betrayal. The survey can't tell us whether experience with AI caused those attitudes. But it does suggest that the more emotiona [truncated for AI cost control]