From easy-to-use tools to friendly assistants, modern Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbots serve a vast spectrum of human needs, which makes them increasingly popular and prevalent. While most users adopt AI chatbots for increased productivity and self-improvement, AI chatbots are also being used for companionship and intimate conversations. We call modern AI chatbots that are being designed for long-term interactions as "AI companions" and investigate the evolving dynamics of these synthetic relationships to understand how AI companions get integrated into emotional and social aspects of human interactions.

The present PhD project investigates the formation of synthetic relationships with four studies. First, we investigate how the features of AI companions encourage or simulate relationship formation. Second, we identify user-related factors that attract a person to form a synthetic relationship with an AI companion. Third, we analyze conditions that make an AI companion a satisfactory communication partner in intimate interactions. Last, we follow how human-AI relationships get more intimate over time.