The IA companions are experiencing an unprecedented boom on smartphones. Virtual friends, romantic partners or fictional characters: we find everything among these bots who create strong emotional ties with their users, to the point of becoming essential for some.
The transition to GTP-5 last week caused the anger and the spite of many users who had attached themselves to the “personality” of the previous models. It is true that Optai has reduced the flagorn side of GPT-4O which caressed the user in the direction of the hair. Difficult to do without this dose of dopamine overnight …
Strong emotional links
The company has since restored the possibility of changing the IA model, but this affair has revealed how much the bots could, over interactions, establish itself as real digital “companions”. Even without being originally designed to play this role, assistants like Chatgpt end up creating an emotional link with their users, who project on them character traits and familiar habits – to the point of feeling a lack when these landmarks disappear.
There are applications completely dedicated to this virtual companionship. Relima, Character.ai, Polybuzz, Chai, or Grok which has recently embarked on this niche, are among the best known apps in this sector promised to a bright future. Unlike general chatbots, these apps create a personalized interaction with fictitious characters (friends, romantic partners, fantastic figures, etc.), which can be preconceived or created by users.
According to Appfigures, this market has already brought in $ 82 million in the first half of the half and could exceed 120 million by the end of the year. 128 of the 337 active apps and generating income was launched this year. In July, they totaled 220 million downloads, including 60 million over the first six months of the year (+88 % over a year). Since their appearance, they have generated $ 221 million in spending, with a strong increase in download ($ 1.18 against $ 0.52 in 2024).
The market is however dominated by a minority: 10 % of apps capture 89 % of income, and 33 of them exceeded $ 1 million in cumulative income. Apps targeting an “girlfriend IA” are the most numerous (17 % of the names), far ahead of those evoking a “boyfriend” (4 %) or a “fantasy” universe.
With AIs whose expression is always closer to that of humans, capable of reacting with humor, empathy or affection, and which seem to listen without judging or demanding, these first virtual companions will only evolve and improve. It will be a simple interactive entertainment for some users, but for others everyday emotional support.
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Source :
TechCrunch
