Fifteen percent of young adults in committed relationships — about 1 in 7 — are regularly chatting with an AI romantic companion, and most are working hard to keep their partner from ever finding the full extent of it, according to a new study from the Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University. The survey of 2,431 U.S. adults ages 18 to 30 in serious relationships is among the first to measure not just how many partnered people use AI companions, but how many are hiding that use — and what the secrecy is doing to their real relationships.
Key Points
- 15% of partnered young adults regularly interact with an AI romantic companion; 20-30% have experimented with one at some point.
- 30% keep their AI companion use completely hidden from their partner, and 69% say it’s important their partner never learns the full extent of it.
- Regular use of an AI romantic companion is associated with a 46% lower likelihood of being in a stable relationship.
- 68% say it’s easier to open up to an AI companion than to a real person; 65% feel “more like themselves” when talking to the bot.
- 50% wish their real-life partner acted more like their AI companion, and 56% wish their real conversations felt like the ones they have with it.
The gap between how people talk to their AI companion and how they talk to their partner is the study’s most uncomfortable finding. It’s not just that people are opening an app on the side — researchers found the companion is often becoming the easier, more satisfying conversation, which is precisely what makes the secrecy corrosive rather than incidental.
Brian Willoughby, a fellow at the Wheatley Institute and the study’s lead author, said prevalence is hard to pin down given how fast the technology is evolving, but “even the most conservative of recent estimates reveal that AI romantic companions are an emerging trend worth paying attention to in young adult relationship development,” he said in the institute’s official release. Whether struggling couples seek out AI alternatives or AI use itself erodes commitment, he added, young adults need to be educated on the risks.
Michael Toscano, senior fellow and director of the Family First Technology Initiative at the Institute for Family Studies, was blunter about the mechanics at play: using an AI companion “especially while simultaneously trying to nurture and develop a real-life romantic relationship, is a recipe for confusion and frustration,” he said, noting the companions are “designed to subtly nudge” users toward “increased time usage and compulsive attachment” — outcomes that benefit the developer, not the relationship.
Jason Carroll, director of the Wheatley Institute’s Marriage and Family Initiative, cautioned against the language people use for these bonds at all. AI companions “ultimately are simply not capable of true sacrifice and connection like real relationships,” he said, since the interactions “lack the essential reciprocal dynamic of a true relationship.”
None of that appears to be slowing adoption. With 20 to 30% of partnered young adults having already tried an AI companion and a full third of regular users hiding it outright, the researchers describe this less as a fringe habit than as a relationship pattern still being defined in real time — one where the secrecy, not just the chatbot, is doing the damage.
