{"id":122,"date":"2026-05-19T21:38:53","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T21:38:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=122"},"modified":"2026-05-19T21:38:53","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T21:38:53","slug":"is-your-sweetheart-cheating-on-you-with-an-ai-partner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=122","title":{"rendered":"Is your sweetheart cheating on you with an AI partner?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>KEY POINTS<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li>One in 7 young adults engage in AI romantic relationships, many of them secret.<\/li>\n<li>Those in AI relationships report lower real-life relationship quality.<\/li>\n<li>AI companionship may detract from authentic human connections.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>Counterfeit romances are becoming increasingly popular, even among young adults who are in a real-life relationship. A new study finds that 1 in 7 young adults who are dating, engaged or married also have a secret and frequent romantic attachment on the side with an AI chatbot. And most of them keep at least some aspect of that relationship a secret from their flesh-and-blood partner.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=120\">White House advisor on addiction Kathryn Burgum opens up about her own recovery<\/a><\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s according to a new study, \u201cSecret Soulmates: How AI Romantic Companions Are Starting to Impact Real-Life Romantic Relationships in Young Adulthood,\u201d by researchers at Brigham Young University\u2019s Wheatley Institute and the Institute for Family Studies. While the report notes challenges in quantifying exact prevalence, \u201ceven the most conservative of recent estimates reveal that AI romantic companionships are an emerging trend worth paying attention to in young adult relationship development.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Those in simulated romantic relationships also tend to have lower real-life relationship quality, per the report.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s not clear is whether those using chatbots do so because they are in low-quality real relationships, or if connecting to an AI chatbot regularly reduces the real-life relationship quality, Brian Willoughby, associate director in the School of Family Life at BYU and a fellow at both the Wheatley and Family Studies institutes, told Deseret News.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s \u201cpretty clear\u201d that use of AI romantic companions is rising, Willoughby said. \u201cNow how quickly they\u2019re going up, where they\u2019ll peak, I think that\u2019s the big question.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>According to the study, based on a survey of 2,431 U.S. adults ages 18 to 30 who have a real-life romantic relationship, young men are slightly more likely to have an AI romantic companion than young women, but the gap is small.<\/p>\n<p>And regardless of gender, a significant number don\u2019t let their real-life partner know the extent of their interaction with the virtual partner. Nearly 30% said their human partner didn\u2019t know at all about the romantic involvement with an AI companion, while 11% said their partner was \u201conly somewhat aware\u201d and 14% said their partner was \u201cmostly but not fully aware\u201d of the AI relationship. Taken together, that indicates fewer than half are completely aware of the artificial relationship.<\/p>\n<p>More than two-thirds (69%) said they didn\u2019t want their partner to learn the full extent of their use of AI romantic companions.<\/p>\n<p>Willoughby describes a \u201creally interesting kind of internal rationalization process people are going through now as they start to utilize these tools.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>They don\u2019t think it\u2019s cheating and seem to feel OK about it, but would not want a romantic partner to read a transcript of the pseudo romance interaction \u201cbecause it\u2019s going to feel and read as if I\u2019m cheating on them,\u201d according to Willoughby, who is also an associate editor for the Journal of Sex Research and serves as an assistant editor for the journal Emerging Adulthood<i>.<\/i><\/p>\n<h3>The appeal of an AI companion<\/h3>\n<p>The research suggests versatility is part of the appeal, as some young people use chatbots for \u201cemotional talk, role play or to create sexual content,\u201d per the report.<\/p>\n<p>The authors wrote: \u201cWe found that some dating, engaged and married young adults participated in sexual behaviors with AI companions apps, with 13% reporting that they often role play romantically or sexually with an AI companion. Nearly 1 in 10 (11%) also reported that they often use an AI companion to generate sexually explicit content and almost 1 in 10 (8%) reported that they regularly masturbated while talking to an AI companion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The researchers also found that about 10% don\u2019t stick with just one AI romantic companion.<\/p>\n<p>Besides the 10% to 15% of partnered young adults who have ongoing romantic interactions with AI, \u201cwe found that another 20% to 30% reported that they had at least experimented with using an AI romantic companion at some point in time,\u201d the report authors wrote. <\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=118\">Prosecution says it had to counter \u2018absolutely misleading\u2019 info from Tyler Robinson<\/a><\/p>\n<p>They said that could indicate someone tried and then abandoned use of that kind of technology, but it could also portend greater use in the future as an increasing share of young adults \u201care exposed to these types of AI platforms that mimic relationships.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Among the reasons given for using an AI companion:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It is easier to talk about feelings with AI than with real people: 68%<\/li>\n<li>Feelings can be more openly expressed with AI than with real people: 66%<\/li>\n<li>It\u2019s easier to be themselves with an AI companion: 65%<\/li>\n<li>They wish their real-life partner behaved more like their simulated one: 50%<\/li>\n<li>They wish conversations with living, breathing partners were more like conversations with ersatz partner: 56%<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>What worries researchers and experts<\/h3>\n<p>An AI romance is \u201cinherently one-sided,\u201d Willoughby said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t require the type of sacrifice and back-and-forth that we know makes good relationships last in the long term. I think that\u2019s the big concern here.\u201d<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>Related<\/div>\n<div>(Un)true love: When AI enters the dating scene<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>He added, \u201cThese AI companions aren\u2019t necessarily going to single-handedly end dating and relationships. But we\u2019ve already seen a trend in young adulthood and adulthood of people disengaging from dating, from marriage, from family relationships because of a variety of reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Calling it a \u201cdigital distraction,\u201d he said AI romantic companion use is \u201cone more thing that can distract people from real human relationships. That, I think, is a concern.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Besides being associated with \u201cnegative relationship quality in real-life romantic relationships,\u201d use of the chatbots \u201cis particularly linked\u201d to lower stability in real relationships and greater risk of breakup or divorce, per the research.<\/p>\n<p>The report highlights how simulated relationships fail to deliver the benefits a couple gets from reciprocal relationships that include accomplishing goals and overcoming obstacles together. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cAI companions, while mimicking human interaction, ultimately are simply not capable of true sacrifice and connection like real relationships,\u201d Jason Carroll, director of the Marriage and Family Initiative at the Wheatley Institute, said in a written statement. \u201cBecause interactions with AI companions are by their nature counterfeit, we caution (against) using terms like \u2018partner\u2019 or \u2018relationship\u2019 to describe interactions with AI algorithms and technologies \u2014 such interactions can never be genuinely relational in nature because they lack the essential reciprocal dynamic of a true relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>One-sided relationship<\/h3>\n<p>When AI simulations of romance were first gaining popularity, Jill Manning, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Louisville, Colorado, noted that people need real relationships in order to develop emotionally.<\/p>\n<p>The illusion of a relationship created by AI could eventually become a delusion because it\u2019s an echo chamber that\u2019s completely one-sided, warned Manning, who was not involved with the new study.<\/p>\n<p>Manning and more recently Willoughby both point out some similarities with use of pornography, which most people agree is problematic. As Deseret News has reported, \u201cFor years, experts have made one point about pornography: When males can choose what happens, what those engaged in sexual activity look like, and be titillated on the schedule of their choosing, how can a flesh-and-blood female compete?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Similarly, when females can create a relationship that is emotionally satisfying all the time with AI, is available whenever one wants and continuously provides affirmation, how can a human male compete?<\/p>\n<p>The study\u2019s other authors are Michael Toscano, a senior fellow and director of the Family First Technology Initiative at the Institute for Family Studies, Rebekah Hakala, a graduate student in the master program at BYU and undergraduate student Katrina Morris.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=116\">Close shave<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>Join the Conversation<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div>Looking for comments?<\/div>\n<div>Find comments in their new home! Click the buttons at the top or within the article to view them \u2014 or use the button below for quick access.<\/div>\n<p><button>VIEW COMMENTS<\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Are AI romantic relationships harmful? How do AI romance affect real relationships? Do people have relationships with chatbots? What is an AI romance?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":121,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Is your sweetheart cheating on you with an AI partner? - American Movers Hub<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=122\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is your sweetheart cheating on you with an AI partner? - American Movers Hub\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Are AI romantic relationships harmful? 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