Adult AI companionship applications—including Replika, Xiaoice, Gatebox, and CarynAI—are sig nificantly shaping how young people experience love, loneliness, and intimacy. The global AI companion market is projected to grow from USD 37.73 billion in 2025 to USD 435.9 billion by 2034, driven by expanding romantic and adult-oriented features, advanced personalization, and integration of multimodal affective computing systems.
In Bangladesh, where an estimated 96% of internet users engage with AI services, a substantial proportion of youths are entering this digital companionship ecosystem with limited understanding of its psychological, privacy, and ethical implications. Early evidence indicates that these interactions may exacerbate emotional dependency, parasocial attachment, and normalization of algorithmic objectification in a socio-cultural context with high stigma around sexuality.