More than a quarter of Gen Z adults, 27%, say they’ve had a flirty or romantic conversation with an AI chatbot, more than double the 11% rate found across all American adults, according to a new Talker Research poll released this year.
photo credit: unsplash
The survey of 2,000 U.S. adults, conducted July 1-6, 2026, also found that 27% of Gen Z respondents said an AI conversation had actually turned them on, exactly matching the share who reported flirting with a bot in the first place. That’s a notably younger and more sexually charged pattern than what shows up among older generations.
Millennials came in at 16% for romantic AI chats, Gen X at 9%, and baby boomers at just 2%, according to the same data. Men overall were roughly twice as likely as women to report flirting with a chatbot, 15% versus 8%, and men were also more likely to say the exchange turned them on, 17% to 9%.
Key Points
- 27% of Gen Z have had a flirty AI chatbot conversation, versus 11% of all adults
- 27% of Gen Z say an AI chat has turned them on
- 44% of Americans believe people will form genuine emotional relationships with AI in the future
- 24% of all adults, and 36% of Gen Z, consider AI flirting a form of cheating
The poll’s most striking forward-looking number may be the 44% of Americans who said they believe people will form genuine emotional relationships with AI in the future, a sign the technology is already being taken seriously as a relational force rather than a novelty. At the same time, a meaningful share of respondents see limits to that bond: 24% of adults called AI flirting a form of cheating, and among Gen Z that figure climbed to 36%, suggesting the generation most willing to flirt with a bot is also the most conflicted about what it means.
The generational gap tracks with how differently each age group has grown up alongside conversational AI. Gen Z is the first cohort to reach adulthood with chatbots like ChatGPT and companion apps already woven into daily life, making an intimate exchange with software feel less like science fiction and more like another messaging habit. Older generations, by contrast, largely encountered the technology as a workplace or search tool first.
Talker Research did not disclose which specific chatbot platforms respondents used most often for these exchanges, and the poll did not ask whether any of these interactions moved into paid subscription features. As AI companion apps continue marketing directly to younger users, the numbers suggest that line between casual chatting and something more emotionally loaded is already blurring for a meaningful slice of Gen Z.
