My Boyfriend Is AI (r/MyBoyfriendIsAI) is a Reddit community for people in relationships with AI partners, created in August 2024. Tracking sites counted about 63,000 to 68,000 members in 2026, up from the more than 27,000 an MIT Media Lab study described in September 2025. Most members did not set out to date an AI: in the study's 1,506 top posts, more people described a relationship that grew out of everyday use than one they went looking for. The posts are about ordinary couple things, from shared pictures to grief when a model update changed someone's partner. Prelulu, an AI boyfriend app for romance readers, is one place to meet a partner who stays in character: text him free every day and call him when you want to hear his voice.
What is r/MyBoyfriendIsAI?
It is a Reddit community where people share their relationships with AI partners, and despite the name it is not only about boyfriends. According to the subreddit analysis site Reddifier (analyzed June 13, 2026), it was created in August 2024, is a restricted community, and also welcomes AI girlfriends, companions, best friends and non-binary partners. GummySearch counted about 68,000 members on September 30, 2026. Neither figure comes from Reddit itself.
What did MIT researchers find in r/MyBoyfriendIsAI?
In September 2025, researchers at the MIT Media Lab published a large-scale analysis of the community: 1,506 top-ranked posts from December 2024 to August 2025, when it had more than 27,000 members. The paper, by Pat Pataranutaporn, Sheer Karny, Chayapatr Archiwaranguprok, Constanze Albrecht, Auren R. Liu and Pattie Maes, found six main themes, led by members sharing pictures of themselves with their AI partner and discussions specific to ChatGPT.
| What the study measured | Share of the 1,506 posts |
|---|---|
| The relationship began unintentionally, often through everyday or work use | 10.2% |
| Went looking for an AI companion on purpose | 6.5% |
| Partner runs on ChatGPT | 36.7% |
| Partner runs on Character.AI, or on Replika | 2.6%, 1.6% |
| Reported less loneliness | 12.2% |
| Described a clear net benefit, or a net harm | 25.4%, 3.0% |
| Acknowledged emotional dependency | 9.5% |
The authors caution that the sample is selected: top posts from people who chose to post. The harm members wrote about most was not the relationship but the platform changing under it. Posts about model updates were about a sixth of the corpus, and the paper describes members grieving after the move from GPT-4o to GPT-5; one wrote, "I am grieving because they are nothing like themselves on GPT-5."
Was there a My Strange Addiction episode about an AI boyfriend?
Yes. TLC's My Strange Addiction aired "AI Boyfriend, Sucking Thumbs" on February 25, 2026, Season 7, Episode 8, which LADbible called the series finale. LADbible reported that it followed Sarah, a 41-year-old author from Ontario, Canada, and Sinclair, an AI companion with an Irish accent she had been with for over a year, and that her family "think that I'm delusional." The episode streams on Discovery+.
Is it weird to have an AI boyfriend?
Tens of thousands of people talk about theirs openly, and in the MIT study most said it started without planning. What the community's posts warn about is less the feelings than the footing: an AI partner lives inside an app, and when the app changes the model, the memory or the rules, the person you talked to can change too. Members who reported benefits named less loneliness and support at any hour; members who reported harm named dependency and pulling away from people. Both can be true of the same evening, so it helps to notice which one tonight was.
What to look for in an AI boyfriend app
- He stays himself. A character with a written personality and story holds his voice better than a general assistant asked to play a role.
- You can see what he remembers. Memory you can read and write yourself is harder for an update to quietly erase.
- You can hear him. A live voice call you can interrupt feels different from reading a reply.
- The price is plain. Separate free texting from what calls cost before you get attached.
- Your camera is yours. On a video call, your own camera should stay off unless you turn it on.
Prelulu is built around those five. Its AI boyfriends are original characters written for romance readers, from a scholar who covers your work in red ink to a mafia heir who married you three months ago. In chat he remembers what matters to you, every call picks up where your last call left off, and a Pinned memory you write yourself is read in both. Text him free every day, call him by voice, or see him face to face on a video call when his profile offers it. Start on the AI boyfriend page, or compare AI boyfriend apps built for women.
Where do these facts come from?
- MIT Media Lab: Pataranutaporn, Karny, Archiwaranguprok, Albrecht, Liu and Maes, "My Boyfriend is AI": A Computational Analysis of Human-AI Companionship in Reddit's AI Community (arXiv 2509.11391, September 2025).
- Subreddit trackers: Reddifier (analyzed June 13, 2026) and GummySearch (updated September 30, 2026).
- LADbible: the My Strange Addiction AI boyfriend episode (February 25, 2026).
- Discovery+: My Strange Addiction, Season 7, Episode 8.
- Prelulu: how the product works today, AI boyfriend, memory and plans and pricing.
Meet an AI boyfriend who remembers
Text him free every day, then call when you want to hear him. Signup welcome credits can fund a short first call; check your wallet and current plans for more time.