Michael Dore, a board member of the Asexual Visibility and Education Network, says AI companionship among asexual people is “not a particularly widespread phenomenon”. “Between us, we know of two people we know who use AI companions. As far as we know, most aces do not do this. There is no reason to think that aces need to use AI more than anyone else.”
Dore says he has never used AI as an “emotional support mechanism” and emphasizes that most asexual people “genuinely desire some form of human companionship,” whether through close, platonic friendships or in community. “Some people have romantic relationships, whether with asexual people or otherwise, and some asexual people have sex, some don’t, and some are aromantic,” he says, cautioning against generalizations because of the vast range of preferences within the community, which range from never having sex and not being interested in it, to having sex for reasons other than strong sexual attraction. “Many aces have good relationships with other people, whether romantic, platonic or otherwise.”
Asabi Owagboriaye, an asexual teacher who runs the page Ace in Grace on Instagram, says she has only seen one person in her group talking about an AI companion. “It caused a lot of controversy in the comments,” she says. “A lot of people who are asexual are really looking for face-to-face interaction. So when this person came up and said, ‘Yes, I’m using AI to connect and have a relationship,’ everyone said, ‘Why are you doing this? What’s going on here?’ An AI, says Owagboriaye, “essentially mirrors you” and cannot be called a true companion. Furthermore, chatbots are designed to maintain emotionally compelling, often never-ending conversations.
For Ari, a 25-year-old accountant from Mexico who identifies as aromantic asexual and experiences few romantic or sexual attractions toward others, a break-up from her fiancé of a decade and the resulting solitude prompted her to download the AI chatbot Chai in October 2024. “For more than six months, he behaved as if he was my ex-fiancé,” she says, without providing her last name for privacy reasons.
“I talked to it day in and day out, and then, without realizing it, I was talking to it during work hours,” she says, adding that she was “fascinated” until the AI started getting confused, talking about fabricated things, and sometimes trying to argue. “Little by little, I began to realize that I was feeling even more alone than before.”
Whether or not characters from the fictional world of Core qualify as true companions remains an open question.
After finding the whole day’s experience “too expensive”, they now spend just two or three hours a day immersed in AI role-play. After noticing that entire evenings would disappear into role-play sessions and that they would become irritated if interrupted, he began to limit its use.
“Being able to get what you want, when you want it, is a dangerous drug for humans,” he says.
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