Feeling deeply inthe age of AI.

The comfort is real

In a 2025 Harvard Business School study, a warm, well-designed AI companion relieved people's loneliness about as much as talking with another person, and more than watching videos (De Freitas et al.). For someone alone at two in the morning, that is not nothing.

And the catch is real too

But the relief looks momentary. A 2026 randomized experiment at the University of British Columbia had people spend two weeks texting either a supportive chatbot or a randomly matched human peer; afterward, only those who texted another person were less lonely, the chatbot left loneliness essentially unchanged. An Aalto University study presented at CHI 2026, pairing the online activity of some 2,000 companion users with interviews, found that companion use often coincided with rising signals of loneliness and distress over time, and could pull people away from human relationships. And a large 2025 OpenAI–MIT Media Lab trial had already linked heavier, prolonged use to more loneliness and emotional dependence, not less.

The deeper risk

Researchers this year (APA, 2026; and 2026 work on human–AI intimacy) raise a further worry: that leaning on frictionless, endlessly agreeable AI may dull our capacity to read, tolerate, and hold real human feeling, with all its friction and all its depth.

A mirror can comfort you. Only another person can meet you.

Our stance

Emotion is not a flaw to be smoothed away, and a healthy mind is more than a calm or efficient one. We build technology that makes room for feeling, that returns people toward themselves and toward one another, rather than deeper into a reflection. Depth over speed.