CNA explains: How should we approach AI companionship?

null / Credit: Shutterstock AI/Shutterstock Rome, Italy, Oct 22, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA). As world leaders raise concerns about widespread loneliness and declining social skills, tech companies are offering increasingly realistic and immersive forms of AI-based life coaching, friendship, and romance through AI companions.  Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg suggests that AI companions could supplement the lack of human friends; X’s Elon Musk thinks romantic and sexually-charged AI companions could mitigate demographic decline; and OpenAI’s Sam Altman promises that ChatGPT will…