A surprising number of young adults in real-life romantic relationships are simultaneously maintaining secret romantic interactions with AI chatbot companions.The report “Secret Soulmates: How AI Romantic Companions Are Impacting Real-Life Romantic Relationships in Young Adulthood” examines how AI companions are quietly influencing the real-life romantic relationships of some young adults. After surveying 2,431 U.S. adults ages 18 to 30, we found that 1 in 7 (15%) young adults who are dating, engaged, or married regularly interact with AI chatbots that simulate a romantic partner. Another 20% to 30% reported that they had at least experimented with using an AI romantic companion at some point in time. Men were slightly more likely than women to engage with AI romantic companions, but the gender gap was small. We readily acknowledge the challenge of identifying an exact prevalence rate with rapidly evolving behavior such as the use of AI technologies, but even the most conservative of recent estimates reveal that AI romantic companions are an emerging trend worth paying attention to in young adult relationship development. Key to our findings is the fact that the use of AI romantic companion technologies appears to be associated with negative relationship quality in real-life romantic relationships. AI romantic companion use is particularly linked to lower levels of real-life relationship stability and an increased likelihood that couples will break up or divorce. AI romantic companion use was also linked to lower quality communication patterns with real-life romantic partners.The four key conclusions of this report include:
Toggle ItemTakeaway #1: Secret soulmates are emerging – for both men and women.
Toggle ItemTakeaway #2: Some young adult men are retreating into secret digital relationships, and their partners may be unaware.
Toggle ItemTakeaway #3: Young adults often fail to see the emotional and relationship implications of their AI use.
Toggle ItemTakeaway #4: Secret soulmates may impact the stability of real-life relationships.
Read the full reportDownload the press releaseAbout the AuthorsBrian Willoughby is a Professor and Associate Director in the School of Family Life at Brigham Young University and a Fellow of the Wheatley Institute. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Family Studies. Dr. Willoughby currently serves as an associate editor for the Journal of Sex Research and serves as an assistant editor for the journal Emerging Adulthood.Jason Carroll is the Director fo the Marriage and Family Initiative at the Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Family Studies. Dr. Carroll is a past recipient of the Berscheid-Hatfield Award for Distinguished Scientific Achievement given by the International Association for Relationship Research.Michael Toscano is a Senior Fellow and the Director of the Family First Technology Initiative at the Institute for Family Studies. He previously was the executive director of the Institute for Family Studies and is a leader in effforts nationwide to adopt laws to make technology safer for kids. He has written on family policy, tech policy, the uses of technology to reshape work, and the effect of technological change on America's republican form of government.Rebekah Hakala is a graduate student in the master program studying marriage, family, and human development at Brigham Young University.Katrina Morris is an undergraduate student in the human development program at Brigham Young Univeristy.
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