We’re already well on our way to the plot of ‘Her,’ as a 2025 survey from World revealed that a near-majority of adults admitted they’d date an artificial intelligence.
The age of AI is officially upon us as everyday people and huge corporations alike embrace the lightning-fast analysis of language learning models like ChatGPT, Gemini, and more.
However, it seems that many individuals are using AI for personal companionship — specifically of the romantic variety.
World, a ‘global human identity network’ that offers services like iris scans to prove you’re a human, conducted a survey across its 90,000-strong userbase, the largest human-only survey of its kind.
A surprising number of humans are open to dating artificial intelligence bots, according to research data and surveys over the last five years.
AI companionship isn’t as uncommon as you might think
In the survey, 26% of participants revealed that they’d flirted with an AI, whether that be just for fun to see how it would respond or “unknowingly.”
Perhaps even more shocking is that 60% of respondents said they’d been ‘catfished’ by AI on dating apps, either discovering or suspecting that someone they’d matched with was actually a chatbot.
As a result, 90% of survey participants said they want dating apps to include a human verification tool to avoid getting in too deep with someone who isn’t actually real — but others say they’d knowingly date a virtual companion.
Data from the Pew Research Center in 2023 shows that 40% of people are “open to the idea of dating an AI partner,” with men being twice as likely to consider an artificial romantic partner than women.
However, over half of those surveyed were “creeped out” by the idea of dating an AI, although 33% said they’d let it draft their dating profile for them.
That’s not all; those surveyed shared the top reasons they’d date an AI, citing that they’re available 24/7 and won’t cheat on them, along with less “relationship maintenance” as definite pros.
Top10.com, Pew Research CenterSurprisingly, this isn’t anything new; in 2020, the New York Times reported that over 10 million people around the world were in relationships with AI companions.
While the future of AI might seem both bright and terrifying at the same time, companies are taking measures to ensure it doesn’t get away from humanity. For instance, Disney and Universal have teamed up to file a lawsuit against Midjourney, citing copyright infringement of their intellectual properties.
Reddit has also filed a lawsuit against AI company Anthropic, saying it used users’ content without authorization to train its models.
