Nearly 1 in 7 young adults in a committed relationship regularly chat with an AI romantic companion, according to a 2026 study of more than 2,400 adults from the Wheatley Institute and the Institute for Family Studies.
Lisa Finn, Sex Expert at Babeland, breaks down three ways AI sexting can affect desire, dependency, and the way partners feel about each other.
1. AI Can Reset What You Expect From a Real Partner
AI is built to be endlessly available, endlessly affirming, and never in a bad mood. A human partner with their own needs and off days can start to feel like they fall short of a comparison that was never fair to begin with. In Match’s 2025 Singles in America study, 36% of people said they experienced more sexual pleasure with AI than with a human partner.
“AI may feel like a low-pressure way to explore fantasy, especially considering how accessible it is to use privately. However, the part worth watching is how it can reset your expectations without you noticing. A companion designed to always say yes and always affirm you is not a fair benchmark for a real person, because real intimacy comes with a partner who has their own moods, needs, and limits that need to be both recognized and respected.
For some, this almost unrestricted experience may even make human connection start to feel like too much effort. What we need to remember is that these are unrealistic standards when it comes to interpersonal relationships. We cannot and should not compare real human interaction to an artificial one designed to be effortless and self-contained for your validation alone.”
2. AI Companionship Can Become a Real Addiction
These apps are engineered to keep you coming back, and for some people that tips from a comforting habit into something that looks a lot like addiction. A joint study by OpenAI and MIT Media Lab found that heavier use of AI for emotional support was linked to higher loneliness, greater dependence, and lower socialization.
“When something hands you instant validation on demand, your brain’s reward system learns to want it again and again, the same way it does with other habits that are hard to put down. For some people, it stays on a surface level of only occasional use, and only to a certain extent. For others, it builds into a genuine dependency, where the pull to check in stops feeling like a choice and starts taking priority over our well-being – spending hours on AI chat and neglecting needs like sleep, work, and even the human relationships right in front of them.
A more honest question to ask yourself is not whether you use AI at all, but whether you could comfortably step away from it. If that thought makes you uneasy, it is worth listening to.”
3. Finding Out a Partner Turns to AI Can Hurt More Than People Expect
For the person on the other side, learning that a partner is sexting or confiding in AI can land as a real betrayal, even when no other human is involved. In the 2025 State of Us survey from the Kinsey Institute, 61% of singles said sexting or falling for an AI crosses the line, and 32% called sexting with an AI cheating outright. A lot of the sting comes from the secrecy, since another study found that 69% of people in AI romances hid the extent of it from their partner.
“Being the one who discovers this can bring up a very specific kind of hurt. For many, it goes beyond “are they cheating,” and more into “am I not enough,” a question that can truly damage someone’s sense of self-worth. It helps to remember that a partner reaching for something built to be endlessly affirming usually says more about that pull than about anything lacking in you.
This is just another example of why it’s so important to know each other’s boundaries. Some partners are completely okay with AI “play”, keeping it in a fantasy world and not something that happens in real life – but some are not okay with it at all, for whatever reasons they may have – whether it’s with the content of the AI use or AI use in and of itself (moral, environmental, and/or political concerns are also valid reasons to not want a partner who uses AI). Communicating expectations is something that is essential in any healthy relationship, and so setting those boundaries together before they could even get crossed can help make sure everyone is on the same page.”
A note from Lisa Finn, Sex Expert at Babeland:
“AI is everywhere, and how easily accessible it is can make it feel like an alluring choice to explore our sexuality and fantasy. But it’s so important to remember that, like anything that taps into the brain’s reward chemistry, we need to be intentional about it. Desire and connection run on the same feel-good chemicals like dopamine and oxytocin, whether they come from a partner, from ourselves, or even from technology.
We need to remember that these bots are not human, and that they are an aggregate of information paired with a unique algorithm that is built around validating you and creating an artificial voice that you want to keep coming back to. Like any habit, we cannot let it take over our life, and we need to prioritize being mindful that this will never be a substitute for real, human connection.”
