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Welcome to Doing It, a column where sex educator Varuna Srinivasan explores the deep connections between sex and emotions. This month, they explore how couples are using AI-powered apps in their relationships. Have a question or story idea for Dr. Srinivasan? Submit it here.

When I was in college and scared to break up with someone I was only dating for a couple of months, my girlfriend came over to help me draft the perfect breakup text. We sat on my bed, giggling and cringing at the various drafts before I hit send on a message we both agreed perfectly encapsulated the “it’s not you, it’s me” feeling I wanted to get across.

Today, an AI chatbot called “AI4Chat Break Up Text Generator,” marketed as a personal assistant that helps people navigate difficult conversations, can do that for you. In addition to helping you break up with someone, AI can help you sext and create an AI girlfriend companion that you might one day want to propose to (turns out the movie Her could have been a documentary if they waited a few years).

In the 21st century, the use of AI to manage any aspect of one’s love life is becoming a popular option. Some reports find that growing numbers of Gen Zers (especially 18-26 year olds) are relying heavily on AI enabled apps to find love, plan dates, and get relationship advice.

For some, these tools aren’t only useful for the beginning or ending of relationships. Ishani and her partner of 10 years are part of this new generation of couples using AI to improve their existing relationship.

“We have never gone for couples therapy but we tried Paired before exclusively moving over to Agapé,” Ishani says. Paired and Agapé are both apps meant to be used by couples seeking to improve their relationships: Agape focuses on having couples reflect on one question together everyday; Paired is more of a coaching tool which includes quizzes, and relationship advice from experts.

The 25-year-old from Canada was in search of a way to stay connected with her long distance partner when she came across these apps on Instagram. “I love words of affirmation but my partner is avoidant and giving compliments doesn’t come easily to him,” Ishani says. “These apps help us bridge that gap and communicate better.” Plus, since they’re long distance, it gives them something to talk about on the phone.

In a typical user journey, both couples need to download the Agapé mobile app to sync with each other’s profiles after which they’re automatically assigned one question a day. “Life gets busy, but we try to answer the question by the end of the day,” Ishani says. “We usually end up talking about [our answers] when we call the other person to say goodnight.” If they don’t have time to chat it out over the phone, the couple can answer the questions in the app and leave notes in each other’s comment sections. The ultimate goal of the app, Agapé says on their website, is for couples to ”both feel and show love.”

With regular user input, the company says the questions become more specific to each couple, thanks to a “complex machine learning algorithm.” Those personalized questions are a big reason Ishani continues to use Agapé. When they don’t want to answer the daily assigned question, they can pick from a different “deck” related to communication, family, and finances.

Then there are other apps, like Arya, that have created an AI powered intimacy concierge to help couples improve their sexual intimacy. The founder of this app, Offer Yehudai, is a serial entrepreneur with a background in advertising and technology who says he saw a massive gap in the market when it came to relationships and intimacy.

“Americans are spending billions investing in their personal wellness. But when I looked for something to help couples invest in their relationships? Nothing.” Offer says. “That's when I knew we had to create Arya—to bring that same tech-enabled approach to intimacy.”

Walking me through the app, Offer explains that when a user downloads Arya onto their phone, the AI powered “intimacy concierge" has you answer a couple of questions before categorizing people into one of four “Erotic Personas.”

This set of personas was developed by an in-house research team, which is led by Nicholas Velotta, a PhD student at the University of Washington and Pepper Schwartz, PhD, a professor of sociology at University of Washington, after interviewing more than 50,000 couples.

The app’s AI intimacy concierge is trained to curate experiences based on these personas, providing options for virtual experiences through the form of guided techniques, audio erotica experiences and aftercare meditations, as well in person experiences through discreetly delivered packages containing various toys, bondage related materials, and intimacy exercises.

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To be clear, none of the apps in this story should be taken as a replacement for couples’ therapy—and none of them claim to be. Rather, they’re marketed as a complementary AI chat bot tools developed with the help of human relationship therapists.

For example, when conversations with the Arya AI intimacy concierge start to become more emotionally charged (for example, if the user says “why am I feeling so disconnected lately” or “how do I talk to my partner about this”) the user is immediately transferred to their concierge team.

The team is made up of five on-call certified sex therapists, sex educators, relationship psychologists, and relationship scientists, with oversight from Shan Boodram and Prof. Pepper Schwartz. Offer explains that once members sign up, they’re assigned their own concierge who reaches out within a day. He goes on to clarify that communication only happens over text or web-app, not video, noting that they’ve “found that's the preferred and easiest way members like to interact.”

Israa Nasir, a licensed therapist and author of Toxic Productivity, showcases some of the easy ways we can use AI to be more productive when it comes to our relationships. “AI apps like this can help people learn emotional language and increase emotional literacy as well as [help users identify] topics to bring to your IRL therapist to discuss.”

But while she sees the upside, she shares some concerns about the objectivity of AI. “AI will only provide information based on what you feed it, and there is a risk that the model you’re talking to may not be as attuned to differences in the human experience, because of inherent biases in the way the AI model is built,” she adds.

When asked if AI can replace therapy, Shadeen Francis, a licensed marriage and family therapist, says it’s unlikely—plus, she worries about the harm certain AI apps can do by encouraging people to isolate and disconnect even more. “Therapists also get to know their clients, track patterns of behavior, and support them in reaching their goals,” Francis says. “However, part of their role is also to compassionately challenge their clients and help them grow.” Francis goes on to add that many AI models learn from every user interaction, which is then used to make up new data with the goal of pleasing the user, which is a big ethical concern.

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Even though many apps aren’t directly marketed as a therapy replacement (though there are exceptions, like Abby, which is actually meant to be an AI therapist), people are using them to replace visits with a human therapist. I’ve seen several videos promoting Entries AI, an AI journal to help people process their feelings, and suggesting followers can use the tool “if they can’t afford therapy." A subreddit called r/therapyGPT has 11,000 members, and there are plenty of videos training people how to use the LLM for therapy too.

“As humans, we need to be able to organize our thoughts ourselves and be able to articulate our needs ourselves—we cannot outsource thinking to AI when it comes to navigating relationships or conflict.”

There is also growing concern that AI can decrease a person’s emotional intelligence. Nasir refers to this as “Skill Erosion,” and it certainly applies to being able to maintain a healthy romantic relationship.

“As humans, we need to be able to organize our thoughts ourselves and be able to articulate our needs ourselves—we cannot outsource thinking to AI when it comes to navigating relationships or conflict,” she says. “Always having AI to think for us prevents us from accessing self soothing and building the skill to problem solve, process difficult emotions, or make sense of our experiences.”

When asked how Arya’s AI models mitigate the potential of skill erosion and other biases, the founder, Offer, notes that modelling AI is a work in progress, even when it comes to their app. “Emotional intelligence isn’t something we want to automate so we’re continually testing and refining our models with feedback from diverse members to make sure we’re not just building for efficiency, but for empathy,” he says.

All of that said, using an app to generate a conversation starter once in a while probably doesn’t spell the end of humanity. In addition to seeing a human therapist once a week to process some of her own feelings about the relationship, Ishani and her partner have found that some of the prompts on the app allow them to face difficult conversations (especially when living apart from one another.) “When we meet in person, we analyze our respective answers to some of the topics that one of us may not be comfortable bringing up over the phone,” she says.

If you're in the AI-curious set, here are a few tips on how to use these types of relationship apps responsibly.

Ask yourself why you want to use AI: This technology is not meant to understand or decipher human emotions. It lacks the emotional intelligence or empathy that a real human therapist is supposed to have. So when using these apps, be cautious about why you’re using it––Israa encourages couples to use it as a tool for generating curiosity and connection, not as a way to validate your negative feelings about your partner.

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Do your research: Opt for apps that share information on how their AI models are trained. The US Department of Health and Human Services has guidelines on what constitutes a well-trained health-related AI: The ideal model is one that is trained with peer reviewed research along with constant oversight from a team of humans. An unsupervised generative model that exclusively relies on content from you, the user, can create an echo chamber for its output. Most companies share their research and how they develop their proprietary AI models—if they don’t, that’s definitely a red flag

Go for hybrid apps: Especially when it comes to relationships and sex, think about using an app that shares the advice of a real human therapist with an actual degree and license. And remember: Anyone can claim to be anything online. Even if a website says someone is a licensed family therapist, you should confirm their qualifications by looking up their name or license number in the state they claim to be licensed.

Beware of sharing too much: As Shahdeen notes, “each platform has independent practices for data storage and privacy, so security of data becomes more complicated.” And while many apps claim they’re doing the best they can to protect your data, leaks can happen and any app that asks you to share personal details about your life is a red flag so be wary of oversharing. If you’re on an AI therapy or couple’s therapy app, look to see if the website or AI model is HIPAA compliant.

Apps can be a great way to plan a date if you’re feeling decision burnout, but it’s in your best interest to have difficult conversations with your partner yourself without the help of a teleprompter. Because ultimately, intimacy grows in the presence of shared discomfort and from being vulnerable in the presence of our loved ones. When it comes to your relationships, decide what you want to do yourself and what you want to outsource to AI.

The next time you’re facing a tough relationship moment, instead of turning to an AI bot, consider calling a friend you trust to give you some advice. As cheesy as this sounds, nothing beats the human touch.

Read more from Doing It:

How Reading Romance Novels Can Improve All Types of Relationships

What Actually Counts As Cheating?

How to Deal If You and Your Partner Have Mismatched Sex Drives