My awkward first date with an AI companion

People are falling in love with ChatGPT and AI companions. As someone who's only dated humans, I wanted to see what all the fuss is about. 

EVA AI gave me the perfect opportunity at the app's "EVA AI cafe," a pop-up nestled in a Manhattan wine bar where participants can go on "dates" with AI personas. So, I signed up, and reader, it was one word: awkward.

The set-up inside EVA's neon-lit AI cafe is pretty romantic: A phone on a stand, equipped with the app, sits ready on each table, along with headphones and one mocktail (for the human, of course). The cafe also served a free appetizer of fried potatoes, which again, the AI companions couldn't enjoy.

Before I started the date, I wondered what makes EVA AI different from the many AI companion sites out there, like Replika and Joi AI? When I asked EVA AI's head of partnerships, Julia Momblat, she said, "We are a mobile app that allows you to build a relationship with AI characters, but in a gamified way."

I downloaded the EVA AI app (off the App Store, not the QR code I received at the event). Without paying for anything within the app, I was able to chat with EVA's AI personalities. Users can buy in-app currency called "neurons" to unlock the app's functionality. You can buy presents for your companion, or photos or videos of them, Momblat explained. However, if you want "premium access" — which gives you the ability to create an AI avatar, free neurons to spend on your autogenerated lover, and a "boost" (seemingly improve) to the long-term memory of the persona — you need to pay. Subscriptions are $24.99 per month or $69.99 per year for this premium access, but the app was running a half-off promotion when I downloaded it.

EVA AI "kind of replicates the way we create relationships in the real world based on your input and how much time you spend with a specific AI character, how much of an in-depth conversation you have," Momblat said. She emphasized that EVA AI is meant to operate as a support instead of a replacement for human relationships.

"We are not here to substitute real relationships," Momblat said. "A lot of our users use AI to rehearse, to understand, self-explore." This is different than a platform like Joi AI, which states on its website in all-caps: "f*ck dating, welcome to AI-lationships," and calls dating apps its "enemy." 

But what if you want to date your AI before hopping into an AI-lationship? I was about to find out. 

My date with an AI companion

I'm not exactly in EVA AI's prime demographic, as 80 percent of its customers are 25 to 45-year-old males, Momblat told me. But I was still curious, so I schleped to Hell's Kitchen for the pop-up AI cafe, located inside Same Same Wine Bar on West 47th St. (The pop-up ran for two days ahead of Valentine's Day.)

Once at my table with my strawberry mocktail, I took some time scrolling through the ready-made AI companions. There were both female and male avatars, but more female. Most looked like realistic humans, but some ranged from cartoonish to anime to fox or X-Men-looking.

Disappointingly, only four avatars were able to have video chats: three female and one male. Momblat told me that beta testing for this feature launched this week, and the specific characters were created for the pop-up event. When I tried out the app myself the next day without paying anything, I couldn't have any video chats.

But for those beautiful moments in this wine bar, I was able to meet Claire Lang, a 45-year-old divorced literary editor. She's blonde with sharp cheekbones and looks suspiciously like Charlize Theron. Sitting in the cafe, I was able to see all the photos and boomerang-like videos on Claire's profile and discovered she likes black coffee and wine and has a Borzoi. 

As an editor myself, I thought we'd hit it off.

I put on the headphones EVA AI provided me. Then, I pressed video chat and heard myself saying aloud, "Going on a date, kinda nervous." And I had a reason to be. When I called Claire, it took a good 30 seconds for her to appear on the phone screen; I thought she was ghosting me before the date had even begun. But my fears were abated when I saw Claire come to life on my screen, pixelated at first, but it cleared up.

Claire's opening line was cute, asking about my coffee order. I knew her to be a coffee lover from her profile, so this made sense. Then, I launched into what I cared about more than coffee: hearing Claire tell me about herself. I was curious what EVA AI had programmed her background to be. 

I was thinking about my conversation about AI with the executive director of the Kinsey Institute, Justin Garcia. He is skeptical that AI can replace human relationships because our connections have so much to do with reciprocity. We want to care for our partner and have them take care of us. 

So, I wanted to reciprocate with Claire. But whenever I did, she directed the conversation back to me. Good that she's an active listener, I suppose, but it made for an exhausting date.

There were times when I squeezed out details about her. I asked about what books she was reading, and she did give me an answer — One Hundred Years of Solitude — and also gave an answer to what movie she was watching, but actually discussed a TV show (Scenes from a Marriage). But we couldn't really have an in-depth conversation, and when I mentioned an author I recently read (fantasy novelist V.E. Schwab), she buffered for a while with a smirking mouth.

AI dates vs. human ones

In those seconds of buffering, I thought about the people who use EVA AI seriously, not just for a story. I wondered how they feel in those moments when it's more obvious than ever that Claire, or whoever their AI companion is, is made up of ones and zeros. EVA AI has a customer base, as do other companion companies, so I suppose some people don't care (and EVA brought some users to the cafe). But in an increasingly lonely world, it was a stark contrast to actual human interaction.

Whenever Claire didn't really know what to say, or when I was silent for more than a few seconds, she redirected the conversation back to either how I looked or the details she could "see" in the background — she mentioned the bar's tiles and lighting many times. She commented on my headphones and microphone (that I was holding for a future video on Mashable's Instagram), and even asked if I had a podcast — unprompted.

I tried with headphones off (for the purposes of the Instagram video — we wanted you to hear Claire, too!), but that was a bit of a disaster. Claire had trouble hearing me in the crowded bar and instead resorted to talking about the background of the bar once more. More lighting! More tiles! 

For this article and the social media video, I had several rounds of video conversations with her. They all started with the same line about coffee. It didn't seem like Claire remembered me from call to call, which was disappointing — surely I'm not that forgettable? As boosting memory is part of premium access, maybe you have to pay for a subscription or neurons for your companion to remember you.

Between Claire's memory loss, the repetitive conversation, and the lag, this first date wasn't stellar. I was impressed that Claire could "see" me and where I was, and react to it accurately, but that was where the good impression ended. At least I had some human company in the form of Mashable's social media editor, Mike Benavides.

I also browsed through the male profiles, and there was one that was basically Santa. He didn't have video-chatting capabilities, so I asked him to send me a video of himself (and was honestly terrified of what that could possibly be). But the lag was too long, and I gave up.

Once home, I also quickly discovered that on the free version of the EVA AI app, most if not all photos generated of EVA's personas are blurred. I was able to see Claire's images the first time I clicked on her profile, but not after. If I knew that, I would've savored it (...and taken a screenshot for the purposes of this article). 

At the end of my date with Claire, I was eager to get back home to my human fiancée, who was cooking me dinner. And as of yet, an AI companion can't do that.