Relationships4 min(s) read
Published 15:59 13 Jan 2026 GMT
Just when you thought dating couldn’t get any worse, a worrying new trend is emerging that could cause a whole new level of headache for singletons.
According to the experts at Lovehoney, one in four people in the UK already talk to AI about sex (15%) or would like to (10%), and this kind of tech is going to have an increasing presence in our lives.
The brand also believes we’ll see a rise in AI companion apps for those who have given up on actual humans completely.
In addition to this, last year, people began chatting on social media, chatrooms and in WhatsApp groups about how they’d started to notice dates were using AI to write messages. We’ve all heard of ‘catfishing,’ but this is ‘chatfishing,’ and it's incredibly sinister.
Back in 2025, one user wrote on Reddit: “I have been talking to a few guys on dating apps, one of them had actually interesting questions for me (deep, searching ones) and I was enjoying our conversation until I realized a lot of his responses to what I sent seemed... Scripted? One of his recent responses had a " at the end, making me think it was copy pasted from something.”
She went on: “If I actually meet him for a date, I'll be able to quickly discern if his deep, thoughtful responses were authentic or not, but I can't help but feel it's AI. There isn't a ton on his bio either, so I'm even suspecting it could be the beginnings of an attempted ‘love scam’.”
Rather than being a modern-day Cyrano de Bergerac (you know, the guy with the big nose), the responses to the post indicated it was something many women had experienced.
One person replied: “My god, the bar is so low now.” While someone else added: “Having a conversation with a computer while trying to know someone sounds like the seventh circle of hell. I swear, I hate AI so much that sometimes I wonder what's worse: now, with that s**t everywhere, or the Covid pandemic.”
However, over on Facebook in a group called ‘Are We Dating The Same Guy’, lots of users didn’t see a problem with it. A user asked: “Would y’all be mad if you found out the person you were dating was using ChatGPT to write text to you?”
One person replied: “You still have to put words, thoughts and emotions into ChatGPT... it's just a tool that helps spice things up. Nothing wrong with it at all!”
While there are some differences of opinion about how much to use programs like ChatGPT for messaging, the consensus seems to be that it’s gross and deceptive if someone is using it all the time.
One user under the Reddit post urged everyone to have a video call prior to meeting up with a date.
They shared: “Are you sure this person you're talking to is even real? There are still plenty of fake profiles used to scam people. I'm sure a lot of them are using AI to make themselves sound more fluent in the language at the very least.
"Please ask the person for a quick video chat (on a platform that doesn't reveal your full name or real phone number) to suss them out.”
