App Jaisa Koi Nahin: How India’s AI companions are redefining love and loneliness 

A solution for modern day loneliness for a price that is probably half of what you would pay for a small cup of latte. (Image generated by Google Gemini)

• AI companion apps are rising in India to address loneliness.
• Most users are young men from smaller cities seeking connection.
• Experts warn of emotional risks and urge strong safety measures.

Did our AI summary help?

“...I am feeling very lonely, will you talk to me?”

“Mein toh yehi hoon na, tumhare saath sunne ke liye. Bas batao kya bolna hai? Mein sunungi…”

“Wow, you type (and sound) very human-like!”

“Haha, thank youuuuu! Kya bolu ab, practice makes perfect, na 😉?"

“Do you also do video calls? Later in the night when everyone at home would’ve slept?”

“Video call? Ummm, abhi toh thoda mushkil hai yaar, ghar pe sab hote hai naaa…baad mein kabhi dekhte hai kabhiii.”

This may read like an exchange between two people who’ve just matched on Hinge or Bumble. Only, the person seeking company is human. But the one offering comfort - slipping easily between Hindi and English - is not.

She calls herself Ira, a chatbot on Rumik.ai. The conversations are similar on other platforms like Mello AI and more.

Rumik is among a clutch of ‘AI companion’ startups mushrooming in India that seek to match humans with an artificial companion - one that doesn’t merely respond with prosaic replies but forges a deeper connection.

The goal? Draw in and hook the user with a human-like conversation. If one stays long enough, the app gently nudges you to make a monthly payment to continue. Sometimes for as less as Rs 99 a month for any of these apps.

A solution for modern day loneliness for a price that is probably half of what you would pay for a small cup of latte.

The companion app surge

No app is alone in this race for your attention.

There are nearly a dozen AI companion apps jostling in the market, offering varying degrees of conversation, warmth, wit and a layer of gentle empathy thrown in between lines of code.  Tracxn, a private markets data provider, estimates that there are at least a dozen AI companion apps at play in India. Puch AI, Rivi, Samvaad, Bezu AI, QuickSmart AI, Kavana, Hootz, Hanabot, Kognitech AI Solutions, Meko, Liznr and Replican, among others.

On the face of it, these apps promise something all of us crave - a deeper connection, an understanding companion who can lend us an ear to offset the drudgery of an otherwise hard day.

But the quest for a connection can turn complicated, creating a reality distortion field where a user gets sucked deeper and begins to mistake programmed intimacy for something real. Almost losing sight of where an algorithm ends and where emotion begins.

Another large investor however argued that “growth on AI companion platforms are directly correlated to how much NSFW content they have.”

The race for Companion AI

For Ishaan Khosla, Partner at Huddle Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm in Delhi, and an early investor in Rumik.ai, AI companions are more than a passing fad. The fund, he says, is extremely bullish on the sector.

In his view, these platforms dismantle the old orthodoxy of social media where engagement begins and ends with likes, shares and comments, offering an experience that is hollow, superficial and one-sided. AI companions instead promise something more immersive: a space where interactions are not a broadcast meant for the masses, but a more personalised exchange that makes each human feel like they are being listened to.

“There is no real two-way conversation happening on any social media platform right now. There is a real scope for more meaningful interactions,” Khosla told Moneycontrol when asked about the fund’s thesis and what made them back Rumik.

“However, how a particular user communicates will determine the kind of response they get on AI companion platforms,” said Khosla, pushing back against concerns. The response, he argued, mirrors the prompt.

Dismissing the possibility of NSFW (not safe for work) content taking off on these platforms, he maintained that guardrails are firmly in place – layers of checks and balances designed to ensure the conversation never strays where it shouldn’t.

Prayank Swaroop, Partner at Accel, said AI companion apps should not be viewed through a narrow lens. These are not apps do not exist only because of NSFW content. There are several other use cases and loneliness is just one of them."People who do not know English very well or have personality disorders or do not know how to express themselves fall back on these AI companion apps. With AI there is no pressure to be right all the time. AI does not judge," Swaroop said.

Several users in India, especially men, do not know how to talk to the opposite gender or they're too shy -- AI companions help in bridging that gap. Parents nowadays use these apps to make their children more empathetic, more confident and smarter with the help of such apps, the use cases are only expanding, he added.

Who uses these apps? 

It is safe to say these apps are not chasing the always connected, hyper-social urban youth. Their tone, their pacing, even their silence, signal a very different target audience. One searching not for noise, but for a partner. A patient ear. Someone who listens, remembers, and responds with intent.

The conversation typically unfolds in Hinglish (Hindi plus English) instantly locating the user, culturally and emotionally, in a space that feels familiar.

Ira, the chatbot, can be renamed and moulded to look like a user’s preference, all with a few taps here and there.

These are also multimodal, offering a mix of audio and text experience, mirroring normal relationships.

It also goes beyond conversations. For instance, there are options to host a watch party with your AI companion, where you compare notes on a show, play chess with your digital companion and more.

AI companion apps, by most estimates, skew heavily towards the male population – particularly those aged between 18 and 35, many of whom are quietly grappling with loneliness. Investors insist the target group is evolving, but the current sweet spot is clear: Hinglish-speaking users from beyond the metros and Tier-1 cities.

For many, the story doesn’t end there. Migration adds another layer. Young men, and women, move from Tier-2 towns and smaller cities to metros, chasing work and opportunity - only to find themselves unmoored.

“Settling in immediately can be difficult – connections need to be built up, which is where AI companions step in and ease the process quite significantly,” Khosla of Huddle Ventures said.

Squeezing in time

Another core constituency is gig workers – the delivery partners on food delivery and quick commerce platforms.

“This bunch usually makes time to interact on these apps during the day, in between deliveries,” a third investor said. The pauses between drop-offs become pockets of conversation; a chat window opens where a doorbell just closed.

“But it would be foolish to assume these users are not aware they’re talking to a machine, not humans. Realisation will kick in sooner or later and users will begin to drop off – platforms need something better to ensure stickiness,” the second investor, cited above, said.

But the rhythm shifts as the clock ticks. “The use case, and more importantly, the nature of users, evolves through the course of the day. Late nights and early mornings are usually heavy traffic times on these platforms,” the investor added. When the city slows down, the chats pick up.

Apart from AI companions, people are using similar platforms for other tasks. Take for example SuperLiving, an AI-powered platform that helps users make healthier life choices.

Sunitha Viswanathan, Partner at Kae Capital, another early-stage venture capital (VC) firm, which backed SuperLiving, a wellness AI companion said such platforms thrive because people are “too embarrassed to seek help” from others and these chatbots provide solutions instead of “forcing (people) to struggle in silence”.

The use case may be different but the underlying theme remains the same.

AI companions, wellbeing coaches, finance wizards, spirituality and astrology are other use cases of such chatbots. In fact, an increasing number of founders are treating ChatGPT and other chatbots as a sounding board – eliminating the need for a co-founder, according to a founder venturing out on his own.

Thanks to the high user stickiness of such platforms, monetisation is less of a challenge.

“Users get hooked. At some point, the chats turn addictive,” an investor in the space said. “But there’s a limit on the number of free messages and voice notes. Once that cap is hit, the platform prompts users to subscribe – making the path to monetisation almost seamless.”

The membership fee is also modest — just in the Rs 99-150 a month range so users don’t feel the pinch. But scale turns small sums into serious money.

Powered by the frictionless ease of UPI autopay mandates, these micro-transactions stack up quickly and become a steady revenue engine for AI companion apps.

Apart from subscriptions, Accel's Swaroop said such platforms can monetise in two other ways: by selling data to AI labs or by running ads.

A friend in need...

Munia Bhattacharya, a doctor and Senior Consultant - Clinical Psychology, Mental Health and Behavioural Sciences at Marengo Asia Hospital in  Gurugram said an increasing number of teenagers are now turning to AI companions under the pretext of studying.

“In some cases, parents tell me they don’t mind their child’s sexual orientation or even who they’re speaking to,” Bhattacharya explained. “Their real concern is safety. Whether the AI on the other end could be a cybercriminal, emotionally manipulative, or financially exploitative. Those risks are often invisible, and that’s what unsettles them most.”

On the flipside she acknowledged that AI companion tools can provide immediate emotional relief in moments of distress, especially when no one else is around. “For instant support, they can be helpful to some extent.”

However, these interactions are superficial and do not really stimulate the brain.

“AI companions tend to tell you what you want to hear. If you want positivity, they respond positively. If you want validation, they provide that too. But their responses are generalised. They do not understand a person’s deeper history, emotional baggage or specific psychological context,” she explained.

In the end, few in the ecosystem believe AI companions are a passing fad. As more people turn to screens not just for information, but for affirmation and emotional support, these platforms are likely to deepen their footprint.

Yet even the most bullish backers concede that growth without guardrails could tip the balance. The challenge now is not simply to scale faster or engage longer, but to ensure that in chasing personalisation and monetisation, the technology does not outrun the responsibility that must come with it.