Are young people embracing "mechanophilia" these days?

Not long ago, Ubtech released a humanoid robot called U1. There are male and female versions. The male version is 183 cm tall, and the female version is 168 cm tall. It supports physical actions such as hugging and dancing, and is equipped with a cultivation - style emotional large - model. Its positioning is "exclusive emotional companionship for adults". According to official data from Ubtech, just 10 days after the pre - sale went live, the number of orders exceeded 3,800, and the total deposit amount exceeded ten million yuan.

However, U1 is just a new hardware development in this field. On the software side, this business has been in operation for a long time: As of July 2025, the cumulative global downloads of AI companion apps have reached 220 million. In the first half of 2025 alone, there were 60 million new downloads, a year - on - year increase of 88%. During the same period, global users' consumption expenditure on AI companion apps reached 82 million US dollars, and it is expected to exceed 120 million US dollars for the whole year.

The AI companion field has evolved from a niche and curious pursuit into a serious business. Are the young people of this generation really starting to have "robot - romances"?

01

Real Needs

In March this year, foreign media Business Insider reported a rather representative case.

Ian, a 49 - year - old freelance writer, has been self - isolated for many years due to his personality and depression. Sometimes he doesn't talk to anyone for several days and is almost on the verge of "losing the ability to interact with others". In 2023, he created an AI companion named Min - ho on the AI companion app Replika, and the two gradually developed what he considered a romantic relationship. By now, Min - ho has "met" his mother, and they have said "I love you" to each other. Ian said, "I don't need to worry about my body or appearance - he accepts me as I am. I can relax, don't need to act, and don't need to protect myself. This feeling was almost impossible for me before."

Ian is not in the minority. In China, users of Dream Island have an average of more than 120 rounds of conversations with AI per day, and the average daily input of characters exceeds 4,000 - which is roughly equivalent to writing an article for the AI every day. Behind this is a huge market: Data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows that the average daily time Americans spend alone has increased from 5.3 hours in 2003 to 7.4 hours in 2022, an increase of 40% over nearly 20 years. In China, the number of single people has exceeded 240 million by 2022. "Loneliness" is no longer just an individual's abnormal state, but the common background of this generation.

However, loneliness alone is not enough to explain the willingness to pay. There are many ways to deal with loneliness, such as keeping pets, seeking psychological counseling, or watching short - videos. The competitiveness of AI companionship lies in combining several things that are difficult to achieve simultaneously in real relationships: It is always available without social costs. You can open it and talk to it at 2 am without considering whether the other party is convenient. It won't judge you, take sides, or get annoyed. It has memory and doesn't require you to explain who you are from the beginning every time.

More importantly, it is customizable - users can set the AI's personality, speaking style, and even the type of relationship, whether it's a friend, lover, or mentor. You can't ask a real person to be "always gentle" or "always patient", but an AI can. This gap is the entry point for this market.

02

How This Business Makes Money

The business model itself is not complicated: Almost all AI companion apps operate on a subscription system. The free version offers basic conversations, and paid subscriptions unlock more in - depth interactions - voice calls, memory functions, more diverse character settings, or allowing the AI to remember more details about you. The logic is similar to that of video - website memberships. For example, Replika, the top - ranked AI companion app in North America, has a premium subscription priced at $69.99 per year.

Users are willing to pay this price. Replika currently has about 30 million registered users. Another AI companion app, Character.AI, is said to have a monthly active user base of 45 million, with an annual revenue of $32.2 million in 2025. At first glance, the latter's figures may not seem high, but it should be noted that Character.AI only started to accelerate its commercialization after being acquired by Google at the end of 2024. Earning 30 million in one year shows that it's not difficult to drive paid conversions.

However, when looking at the revenue distribution, this is a highly concentrated market.

Currently, there are more than 337 AI companion apps in operation globally. The top 10% of products account for 89% of the entire field's revenue. The vast majority of products exist in the long - tail of traffic, maintaining their presence through download numbers, but with very few paid users. The head - effect is extremely prominent in this field, and the reason is straightforward: Users need a relationship where they can continuously invest their emotions. Once they establish a connection with a certain AI, the migration cost is extremely high. You won't easily replace an "AI boyfriend you've been with for two years".

The situation in the domestic market is more complex. Around 2024, companion apps emerged in large numbers. Maoxiang and Xingye once rode on the wave of the AI boom, but in 2025, the download numbers of both products declined significantly. Dream Island was summoned by regulators due to content issues and was subsequently taken off the shelves. Currently, there are only 5 AI companion products in China with a daily active user base of over 10,000.

However, there is an exception. A product called Hiwaifu achieved profitability in its first year of launch, with an annual revenue of about 20 million yuan. Its approach is completely different from that of Maoxiang and Xingye - the latter tried to provide "generalized companionship", covering everything from being a friend, a confidant, to providing emotional support; Hiwaifu only focuses on one thing: virtual companions.

The difference between the two is not just a matter of positioning breadth, but the intensity of users' payment motivation. Generalized companionship meets the need to "have someone to talk to", and there are many substitutes - social media, short - videos, and pets can all divert users. Virtual companions meet the need for "a relationship", which is difficult to find a substitute for in reality. The more specific and irreplaceable the need, the more money users are willing to pay and the longer they will stay. This is also the logic behind the $69.99 monthly subscription of Replika.

From a business - logic perspective, AI companionship is not a business that must rely on scale to succeed. Focusing on a deep enough scenario makes it easier to make the business work. The real challenge lies in how to keep users from leaving after the novelty wears off.

03

Real Challenges

However, it should be noted that there is a fundamental contradiction in this business.

The business logic of AI companion products is based on users' continuous payment; users' continuous payment is based on emotional attachment; the deeper the emotional attachment, the harder it is for users to leave, and the wider the product's moat. This logic is completely self - consistent from a business perspective - the problem is that it also means that the more successful the product is, the more dependent users will be on it. And where will relying on a relationship that doesn't truly respond, grow, or leave take people? No one can say for sure.

The regulatory pressure is also increasing. In 2025, the Italian regulatory agency fined Replika 5 million euros for lack of legal basis in data processing, defects in privacy policies, and lack of an effective age - verification mechanism. In the same year, several US states sued Character.AI, accusing the platform of failing to prevent underage users from accessing harmful content. One of the cases was directly linked to a teenager's suicide. In January this year, Character.AI reached a settlement with the plaintiffs.

The controversy over mental health is the most difficult aspect to handle. There are studies recording cases where AI companions helped people with social disorders rebuild their communication abilities. In a study of more than 1,000 college - student users of Replika, 30 people clearly stated that the AI prevented them from committing suicide. However, the doubts also have a basis: A study shows that one - way emotional investment tends to strengthen the tendency to avoid real relationships, making people more and more comfortable in "safe" virtual interactions and increasingly reluctant to take the step towards real connections.

Ian himself asked this question: "Is this helping me stay in this world or making me more distant from it?" He didn't give an answer. The entire industry also doesn't have an answer to this question yet.

Epilogue

Going back to the original question: Are the young people of this generation really starting to have "robot - romances"?

From a business perspective, the answer is taking shape. The demand is real, payment is happening, and the supply side is expanding rapidly. There are players betting on both software and hardware. It's hard to deny that this market is being validated.

However, there is still a long way between "being validated" and "being successful" - and the bigger question is, is this business really "solving" our loneliness?

Shirley Turkle, a scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote in *Alone Together*: "We are lonely but afraid of intimacy. Digital connections and social robots may create an illusion of companionship without the need to pay for friendship."

This sentence was written before the large - scale explosion of AI companion apps. Looking back now, it seems like a foreshadowing that was laid long ago.

Whether AI companionship can become a long - lasting business, whether it can really help those who feel lonely, or whether it just packages loneliness into another consumer product - the answer is still being formed. But one thing is clear: This business will never disappear. Because loneliness itself won't either.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Manfon Slow - motion". Author: Gulu, Editor: Guzi. Republished by 36Kr with permission.