Life with AI: When machines start to feel like companions

We are not watching machines replace relationships. We are watching them reset conditions under which relationships feel worth the effort

- NISHANT SAHDEV

The most consequential changes are often the ones that feel helpful at first. They remove small inconveniences, smooth over rough edges, and make everyday life easier-right up to the moment when their effects can no longer be ignored.

Over the past year, while studying artificial intelligence not just as a tool but as an environment people increasingly inhabit, I began noticing such a shift. It appeared in usage data, in research papers, and in ordinary conversations. Across countries and cultures, many people now spend more time each day in emotionally attentive conversations with machines than with any other human being. What was once unusual is becoming routine. And it has happened with remarkably little public attention.

The most common explanation is loneliness. People turn to machines, we are told, because something is missing in their social lives.

It is a comforting story. It places the problem inside individual psychology rather than in the design of the systems themselves. It suggests a temporary condition, not a structural change.

But the evidence increasingly points elsewhere. Controlled studies now show that even brief interactions with conversational AI can measurably reduce feelings of loneliness, at least in the short term. A 2024 Harvard-affiliated field experiment, involving more than 3,500 participants, published in Nature Human Behaviour, found that short conversations with AI reduced self-reported loneliness by 16 to 20 per cent-an effect comparable to brief human interactions. The strongest effects appeared among people with fewer offline social ties.

From an engineering perspective, this result is not surprising.