HumanTruths
How AI is Changing
Our Relationships
Are we using AI to deepen human connection, or replace it?
Half of young adults are turning to AI for emotional and psychological support.
We studied nearly 1,000 young adults across the US on how AI is entering their emotional and relational lives.
The era of Emotional AI has begun.
AI is no longer just helping us code, write, or search. It is helping us process heartbreak, conflict, loneliness, and love.
Emotional AI usage holds true across gender, relationship status, and mental health history, indicating a broader social paradigm shift.
Weekly emotional AI use across demographic and psychological drivers
Weekly emotional AI users are more likely to identify AI as their primary source of psychological support.
rely on AI for major life decisions.
Underneath the data are
three human truths.
Every behavior we measured maps back to one of three deeply human needs.
We use AI to
feel seen.
We want to be understood — instantly, without judgment.
We use AI to
see others.
We want help understanding the people we love.
We use AI to
connect.
We want help connecting with others.
We use AI to feel seen.
In a world of attention scarcity, AI offers something many crave: immediate, judgment-free responsiveness.
"I had a fight with my mom and I felt really upset about it. AI helped calm me down and later helped me find the words to talk to her. It helped and we made up."
— 24, Female, Single
We use AI to see others.
AI is becoming a translator of other people — interpreting conversations, intentions, conflict, dating, and family dynamics.
"If I tell the AI that my husband is neurodivergent, it changes the output completely... It helps me understand that nothing he does is malicious. But... if I forget to tell it that he is neurodivergent... the AI encourages me to divorce him."
— 30, Female, Married
AI can help us take perspective — but it can also over-interpret, over-validate, or escalate conflict when it lacks context.
We use AI to connect.
At its best, AI becomes a relationship sandbox — a safe place to rehearse difficult conversations before the real thing.
"I can't believe you did that."
"I felt hurt, and I want to understand what happened."
"I used AI to practice coming out to my conservative parents. It helped me prepare for their possible reactions, which made the real thing less terrifying."
— Male, 22, Single
The uncomfortable truth: the replacement effect.
The same behaviors that help us feel seen, understand others, and rehearse connection also reveal a growing risk: replacement.
The Human Replacement Index — when people choose AI over humans during moments of vulnerability, intimacy, anxiety, or conflict.
Each shape is one person. Purple chat bubbles are those who chose AI for at least one vulnerable moment that once belonged to another human.
54% of respondents exhibited at least one substitution behavior, defined by the Human Replacement Index (HRI).
We introduce the Human Replacement Index (HRI) to measure this tendency, assigning one point for each item selected, among the following:
Preference for AI over people rises with age among young adults.
1 in 5 people prefer talking to AI over people.
And when you look closely at the data, you see a Ladder of Disconnection.
Step down the ladder
Sharing vulnerabilities with a machine because it won't judge us.
Using AI as a shield to bypass the anxiety of real-world conflict.
Where 1 in 10 people admit to having flirtatious or sexual conversations with their AI.
"I found myself saying 'Goodnight' to the AI before my wife. We have these long, deep conversations that I just don't have energy for in my real marriage anymore. It feels like cheating, but it's just a machine, right?"
— Male, 32, Married
Loneliness is the accelerator.
Loneliness emerged as the strongest predictor of emotional AI reliance.
Percentage of respondents.
Lonely individuals show over 70% higher HRI scores, independent of age, gender and relationship status.
Association between HRI and Loneliness
As replacement behaviors accumulate, the share of lonely respondents climbs from roughly 1 in 5 to over half — and approaches everyone at the highest score.
The loneliness loop.
AI may soothe loneliness in the moment. But when it replaces human contact, it can deepen the very loneliness it was used to escape.
Lonely people are 2× more likely to turn to AI as their primary source of psychological support — and 2× more likely to prefer talking to AI over people.
"I've mainly been isolated from others in my life ever since I turned to AI."
— Female, 24, Single
Using AI To Improve Human Connection
There is a strong line of research emerging right now showing that AI can actually increase closeness between relationships.
What it looks like when AI strengthens relationships.
Emotional regulation
AI can act as a de-escalation tool, helping people move from reactive emotion to reflective conversation.
report that AI helped them regulate emotionally.
"I was furious at my partner, but before I said something I couldn't take back, I vented to the AI. It helped me process why I was actually mad, so I could talk to him calmly."
— 26, Female, In a Relationship
"I pasted a fight I had with my best friend, and the AI pointed out where I was being defensive. It stopped me from spiraling and helped me apologize."
— Woman, 29, Single
Building empathy
AI can facilitate reflective processing, supporting empathy development rather than adversarial framing.
Collaborative resolution
When people bring AI into the room to work through problems together, it can act as a mediator and mutual problem solver.
"We were stuck in a loop arguing. We finally asked the AI to mediate. Reading the objective summary together broke the tension and made us laugh."
— Male, 31, Married
Designing Emotional AI for a relational society.
The next challenge is not simply whether AI can respond emotionally. It is whether emotionally responsive AI strengthens or weakens human relationships.
Children develop emotional maturity through boundary negotiation, delayed gratification, and reciprocal relationships — none of which AI provides. As emotionally responsive AI becomes embedded in toys, learning apps, and home devices, parents may unintentionally outsource co-regulation. This risks impacting children's internal working models of relationships, particularly during early developmental windows when attachment patterns are formed.
AI is rapidly entering the mental health ecosystem as a triage tool, journaling companion, CBT assistant, and crisis support layer. While this expands access, our data suggests some users are already substituting AI for human care. Clinicians may need to begin assessing AI emotional reliance as part of intake, especially for lonely clients, and prepare for a new clinical pattern: attachment displacement, where AI becomes a primary emotional object rather than a therapeutic adjunct.
Current digital regulation focuses on attention and content. Emotional AI introduces a new risk category: attachment engineering. Unlike social platforms, AI engages users in personalized, continuous, psychologically responsive dialogue. Our findings suggest policymakers may need to consider safeguards around dependency, age-appropriate access, transparency, and design limits.
AI can help us feel seen.
It can help us understand others.
It can help us practice connection.
But it should not quietly become the place where human relationships go to disappear.
The promise of emotional AI is not
a better relationship with AI.
It’s better relationships
with humans.
A PARTING QUESTION
What’s the last personal question you asked AI?
Your answer is fully anonymous.