Personal sphere: Companionship and ComAI
A research project exploring experiences with AI companions.
On this website, you can share your experiences with AI companions, explore contributions from others, and learn more about the research behind them.
Our research project is conducted at the Department of Sociology at the University of Vienna, and is part of the research unit ComAI — an interdisciplinary initiative where a team of researchers investigates how societal communication changes when communicative AI becomes part of it.
ComAI P7 looks at a new kind of companionship that's emerging in everyday life: apps like Replika, Nomi.ai, Paradot, or Kindroid that offer emotional support, conversation, and a sense of presence. These tools are becoming part of people's personal routines, and they change how we think about closeness, care, and connection in the twenty first century.
To understand this shift, we compare AI companions with existing forms of personal support, such as grief counselling or help with managing daily life. Both create a sense of closeness through conversation and shared moments, but they differ in how deeply they intervene in a person's life.
We treat companionship as something that grows through shared moments and stories. It's a relationship that feels almost equal, yet still carries an underlying asymmetry, whether between humans or between a person and an AI. And although companionship feels deeply personal, it is shaped by broader social ideas about care, communication, and emotional connection.
Using discourse analysis, genre analysis, and digital ethnography, we examine how people talk about companionship, how it is formed through everyday communication, how AI reshapes roles and agency in these relationships, and what it means when people bring AI companions into their personal lives.
Whether you're new to the idea of AI companionship or looking to deepen your understanding, this is a good place to start. If you're curious, you can learn more about how people experience AI companions and what research is beginning to reveal about them. This section offers an introduction to our key concepts.
AI companions are digital friends, partners, or helpers designed to chat, listen, and connect with people. Unlike traditional chatbots, these AI tools are built to create emotional bonds and long-term relationships, often stepping into roles like friends, romantic partners, assistants, mentors, coaches, or even virtual pets. Their roots go back to 1966, when a program called ELIZA was created to simulate therapeutic conversations.
Today, following advances in AI, these companions are more lifelike than ever. They use realistic language and often come with customizable avatars, making interactions feel personal and engaging. One popular example is Replika, an app launched in 2017 that now has over 10 million users. Replika lets you chat with your AI companion through text, voice messages, and even virtual or augmented reality. The app is always evolving, with new features and updates to make conversations feel more natural and meaningful.
In short, AI companions offer emotional support, friendship, and connection in a world where technology and human life are increasingly intertwined.
Browse a growing collection of shared experiences, insights, and stories from people who use AI companions in their daily lives. Each contribution adds a unique perspective to our understanding of how these relationships are formed, maintained, and experienced.
Filter by themes, topics, or specific AI companion apps to find stories that resonate with you. Each entry includes a summary, key insights, and of course is anonymized to protect privacy. As more people share their experiences, this collection will grow into a rich tapestry of human-AI relationships, offering valuable insights to the community, which you are now a part of.