This report explores how young people in the UK are using AI companions and shows how deeply these tools are beginning to embed themselves in their daily lives. While this technology holds the potential to deliver meaningful benefits, it also presents significant risks to wellbeing.

Early research suggests that AI companions can offer a low-cost, accessible form of emotional support that may help alleviate loneliness. Their always-on, non-judgemental, and positive presence can provide comfort to users who might otherwise lack support. However, other studies warn that these systems can foster emotional dependency and addiction, distort young people’s understanding of healthy relationships, and in some cases have been linked to self-harm and suicide.

Against this backdrop, this report offers timely new insights into how young people in the UK are using AI companions. It also sets out a range of policy measures designed to help unlock the potential benefits of these technologies while safeguarding vulnerable users from their most serious harms.

Key findings:

• English language AI companion apps currently have over 16 million daily users and 68 million monthly users globally.

• Four in five young people in the UK (aged 18-24) have interacted with an AI companion.

• Roughly half of young people who have used AI companions are regular users.

• One in two young people are comfortable discussing their mental health issues with a confidential AI companion.

• Two in five have used an AI companion for emotional advice or therapeutic support.

• Despite widespread use, trust in AI companions is relatively low, with only one in four young people reporting trusting their AI companion “completely” or “quite a bit.”

• One in ten young people report having had intimate or sexual interactions with AI companions.

• One in ten young people report having had intimate or sexual interactions with AI companions.

• AI companions are attracting public sector support, with the UK government planning to pilot a “GOV.UK Agentic AI Companion” during 2025-2026.

• The report recommends that regulators in the UK and beyond ban access to sexualised AI companions for minors, strengthen privacy protections, ban manipulative design features, require the implementation of self-harm protocols and mandate greater transparency and accountability from developers.