What Is an AI Companion?

What Is an AI Companion?

An AI companion is an AI chatbot designed to sustain an ongoing, human-like relationship with a user. It typically remembers earlier interactions, shows emotion-like responses and talks about personal matters, which separates it from an assistant that answers a question and moves on. Surfshark's research hub calls AI companions "artificially intelligent systems designed to engage users in human-like interactions, offering emotional support, companionship, entertainment, and more."

The term is a product category, not a technical standard. The same language model can power a friend, a partner or a fictional character; what makes it a companion is the design around it: a standing persona, memory and often voice, an avatar or images. See how AI girlfriend apps work.

How Laws Define an AI Companion

California's SB 243 (Business and Professions Code section 22601) defines a "companion chatbot" as "an artificial intelligence system with a natural language interface that provides adaptive, human-like responses to user inputs and is capable of meeting a user's social needs, including by exhibiting anthropomorphic features and being able to sustain a relationship across multiple interactions."

In summary, New York's General Business Law section 1700 covers a system built to simulate a sustained human-like relationship by retaining information about past interactions, asking unprompted emotion-based questions and keeping up dialogue on personal matters. It excludes customer-service, efficiency and research tools and internal business systems. Oregon's SB 1546 and Washington's HB 2225 use similar definitions.

The label brings duties. New York requires operators to say clearly at the start, and at least every three hours, that the user is not talking to a human. California requires a clear AI notice when a reasonable person could be misled. In the EU, Article 50(1) of the AI Act, in force since August 2, 2026, requires people to be told they are dealing with an AI system unless that is obvious. See our report on US AI companion chatbot laws.

AI Companions in Named Apps

• Friend-style: Replika offers a relationship status of Friend, Romantic partner, Sibling or Mentor. Nomi asks for a relationship type (Friend, Mentor, Romantic or Custom) at creation.
• Memory and customization: Kindroid documents three memory layers (persistent, cascaded and retrievable) behind a customizable character.
• Character platforms: Character.AI calls itself an "interactive entertainment platform that allows you to write your own stories, roleplay with original Characters". Janitor AI and SpicyChat are also built around user-made characters (how they differ).
• Adult AI girlfriend services: Candy AI, DreamGF and Muah AI run in the browser and combine chat with generated images.

To pick one, see how to choose an AI companion app or the ranking of AI girlfriend apps.

Related Terms

• Roleplay AI: using a chatbot to act out characters and stories.
• Character prompt: the standing instructions that define a persona.
• Context window: how much of the chat the model can read at once.
• Long-term memory: see how AI companion memory works.

More definitions: the AI companion glossary.