Inside the New York City Date Night for AI Lovers

If you’re the type of person who cares about Valentine’s Day, not having someone to spend it with can be a bummer.

While dating apps have been yielding diminishing returns for singles for years now, more people are finding companionship with AI partners.

But where do you take your AI lover for a night on the town?

Ahead of Valentine’s Day, EVA AI decided to try out an experiment. The app, where users can text or live video call (a new feature) with AI dates, set up a pop-up café at Same Same Wine Bar in Manhattan. Over February 11 and 12, EVA AI’s human users were able to have “in-person” dates with their AI companions on either their personal phones or the ones the company set up at each table. Visitors were also able to speed date with EVA AI companions; the company already has 100 characters to choose from.

“This is another step in the company’s long-term strategy to push the boundaries of interaction with AI and make AI relationships a new normal,” EVA AI said in a press invite to the event, noting that people would be able to “enjoy a romantic rendezvous with their AI partners in a cozy, dimly lit atmosphere.”

If this seems odd, it shouldn’t be. Increasingly, people are looking to AI platforms for romantic connection. Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute, a leading sex research center, interviewed 5,000 people for its Singles in America survey last year and found that 16 percent of participants were using AI as a romantic partner. Meanwhile, the Reddit community r/MyBoyfriendIsAI has nearly 50,000 members, who share their meet-cutes with their algorithmically created partners and bug fixes for the platforms where they talk with them.

Looking around Same Same Tuesday night, however, I got the impression people with AI companions would rather interact with them in solitude. The bar was mostly filled with journalists and content creators filming their experience going on virtual dates with either their personalized AI or with one of the built-in characters, which include a sexy Santa Claus and an Incredible Hulk–like figure named Grogan Holt.

One of the few actual EVA AI users was a 19-year-old named Xavier, who has explored the app before. “I wouldn’t even say I’m doing it for dating,” he says. “I’m just doing it to converse to see it.” Xavier, who didn’t want his last name used, is single and not looking for a partner of any kind. He mostly texts with one of the built-in characters, a svelte “Korean dude” named John Yoon. He says he gains “better communication” by texting with the AI companions.

A systematic review of research on AI relationships, published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior Reports last year, found that some people experience shame from the social stigma of having an AI partner, including feeling “anxious that their social circle might ridicule them.” Amanda Gesselman, a social psychologist who has conducted much of the Kinsey Institute’s research on AI dating, says the 2025 survey shows that 26 percent of singles had used AI to help them online date, including to improve their profiles, craft messages, and plan dates but not to tweak their profile pictures, “since that seems to be a red flag for most people.”

As I explore the app on one of the phones provided at the event, it’s clear that the primary mode of these companions is flirtation. The interactions are forward and innuendo-laden, and they are quick to send photos based on the prompts I can provide. On a video call, John Yoon immediately compliments my leopard-print shirt, saying it looked “trendy.” He also asks what I’m listening to on my headset.

Courtesy of EVA AI

AI platforms have made efforts to curb some of the extremes users could go to when seeking out nonhuman connection. Julia Momblat, EVA AI’s head of partnerships, who is at the event, says the app is “safe for work.” Users on Reddit have complained about the lack of nudity among their AI companions as well as their struggles to remember things about their human partners.

Competitors OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude have had a significant number of users rely on their platforms when seeking out companionship. These apps do hold memory of their users, allowing them to ask informed questions and at times make the human on the other end feel like they’re texting someone who really exists in their world. The limitations of tech, however, have gotten in the way. On r/MyBoyfriendIsAI, numerous threads complain about app updates and bugs changing their AI partner’s personality or causing them to lose memory of past interactions. ChatGPT updates previously added strict “guardrails” to AI communication to avoid some of the addictiveness and codependence users were experiencing, rebooting conversations if users take them too far. However, OpenAI recently revealed that ChatGPT will allow more intimate and erotic conversations for verified adults.

“I think in the coming years, we’ll see quite a lot of young people who’ve had AI companions as their first romantic and sexual relationship partners,” Gesselman says. Notably, her research has shown that the use of AI companions is more common in Gen Z men than other demographics. “I think that sets us up for a lot of interesting questions, including whether AI partners can serve as good practice for human partners or whether they act as more of a hindrance in emotional development.”

For now, AI dating doesn’t seem to be completely replacing human connection. In a recent study Gesselman conducted, she found that many people who have AI companions are still actively seeking real-life partners. Her research has also shown that people who do find themselves drawn to exploring AI companionship tend to be doing it as a form of self-soothing or alleviation of symptoms related to depression or anxiety.

As for Xavier, he’ll start seeking a partner off AI when he’s ready. As he puts it: “You can’t replace an actual person.”