With the Turkey Dump behind us and cuffing season in full swing, kitchen table conversations continue to come back to our evolving situationship with AI companions. While some skeptics scoff at AI companionship, many consumers are flocking to these social sanctuaries in search of connection and support. But will these relationships be defined over time, or are they to be left in the pile with last season’s skinny jeans once the novelty subsides? To better understand consumers’ existing engagement and future ambitions with respect to AI companions, Team Redpoint (with the help of our partners at Centiment) surveyed 250 consumers this Fall – and what we uncovered makes us eager to double down on companionship as a theme and the startups, infrastructure and applications alike, facilitating this new foundation.

Note: The following data reflects the responses of 56% of our sample set who reported using an AI companion at least once in our survey.

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Elevated Engagement Opens the Door to Expanded Opportunity

AI companions, like Character.ai’s Aether and your own Replika, have officially moved into the mainstream with 3 in 4 users interacting with these curious characters weekly. From offering an escape from the chaos of a challenging week to serving as a sounding board after a bad breakup, this new species of supporters is quickly emerging as an important thread in consumers’ social fabrics. Bumble BFF, watch out.

Time spent continues to tick up with 1 in 2 consumers spending over an hour a week conversing with a companion, and almost 6 in 10 acknowledging an uptick in engagement over the past 3 months. Unlike many pockets of consumer AI where near-term novelty has later led to a dire drop-off in usage, companionship represents one of the key categories where broader market behavior suggests stickiness and staying power. We expect this engagement to continue to expand as modern infrastructure makes it easier than ever before to offer such life-like interactions.

But why? Curiously, consumers’ enamorment with these applications stems from their illusion of understanding. As consumers seek to feel seen, these perma-engaged companions are crossing the chasm with compassion — and are proving themselves to be more understanding, in some instances, than humans. As we think back to the hours we each spent searching for some semblance of a bot bestie during our own AOL-obsessed preteen years, we can certainly relate to the attraction!

AIM nostalgia aside, as consumers increasingly feel the need to outwardly posture and perform amidst the judgment and cancel culture of today’s social media-obsessed society, AI offers an immersive escape as it empowers individuals to express and explore their emotions free from crowds and critique. Consumers today not only find these caring companions to be emotionally additive, but over 50% of them would rather spend time with an AI companion than another human. This affinity, paired with clear cost and accessibility advantages, makes the continued expansion of these digital humans across a broadening spectrum of consumer and prosumer use cases a no-brainer.

However, while interest in these AI apps remains elevated, social media still commands a far greater slice of screen time, highlighting the substantial room for further expansion in usage in the years ahead. While Regina George might not be calling the shots in this social circle, consumers are indeed fantasizing about something fetch.

Where, Why, and How?

As they aspire to break into the bestie band, AI companions will need to expand across interfaces to meet consumers wherever they are – be it in the forests of Fortnite or on-the-go via audio messaging. In the same way that our phones gradually moved off the wall and into our hands at all times, we expect AI to similarly become omnipresent across social spheres in the coming years.

As AI expands across interfaces, consumers will invite AI out from the corners and into their existing social structures. From the Fantasy Football group chat to the family WhatsApp, AI will not simply replace but instead enhance our communities and the ways we connect with them.

Yet how these companions show up on the human-like spectrum remains a key debate. While many today have embraced the idea of these incredibly human-like friends, others remain resistant, holding on hopefully to some semblance of humanity.

With adoption of these AI companions only increasing, underlying model improvements in the coming quarters should further fortify the functions these friends can fulfill in our personal lives.

From answering the almost-too-uncomfortable-to-ask question to never saying no to “just one more game,” AI stands to reinvent relationships as we know them.

If “a friend is someone who understands your past, believes in your future, and accepts you just the way you are,” we have little doubt that AI will play an instrumental role in rewriting our friendships and how we perceive them down the line.

Whether it’s celebrating your wins or unfailingly believing in you when you’re feeling small, AI’s expansion across our social sphere will hopefully slowly fill in the holes that social media has eroded over the past decade, and empower consumers to experiment with and explore their own thoughts and feelings in ways that they never have before.

If you’re as excited about this technology-driven transformation as we are, we’d love to dig in deeper with you — — subscribe to this Substack, check out Redpoint’s growing content hub, or find me on LinkedIn or Twitter for more.

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