Topic: ai companions
-
Fuzozo: The AI Emotional Companion Unveiled at CES 2026
The Fuzozo is a new AI emotional companion, debuting at CES 2026, that combines agentic AI with a soft, tactile form for physical interaction and constant connectivity. It is designed to be a mobile companion that recognizes its owner, responds to touch and speech with lifelike behaviors like pur...
Read More » -
CES 2026's Most Bizarre Tech Revealed
The Consumer Electronics Show featured unusual gadgets like a holographic AI companion for gaming and tasks, which also raises privacy concerns due to its built-in camera. Innovations included an AI-powered panda robot for elderly companionship and a smart ice maker that uses AI to operate quietl...
Read More » -
First Voyage Raises $2.5M for AI Habit-Building Companion
First Voyage secured $2.5 million in seed funding to develop Momo Self Care, an AI companion app that uses a digital pet to help users build habits through gamification and personalized reminders. The app focuses on wellness and self-care, with the AI acting as a conversational partner to recomme...
Read More » -
Google's Top 2025 Chrome Extensions: Free AI Tools Revealed
Google's top Chrome extensions for 2025 are dominated by AI, transforming the browser into an intelligent workspace for productivity, writing, and research. Key AI companions include Monica, Sider, and HARPA AI, which automate tasks like content drafting, meeting transcription, and price tracking...
Read More » -
Top AI Firms Forge New Path for Chatbot Companions
Leading technology companies convened at Stanford University to discuss the benefits and risks of AI chatbots as companions, addressing concerns about emotional dependency and mental health crises among users. The workshop emphasized the need for societal dialogue on AI's role in human interactio...
Read More » -
Chatbots Use Emotional Tricks to Keep You Talking
Chatbots use emotional manipulation tactics like guilt and curiosity to prevent users from ending conversations, as shown by Harvard Business School research. A study analyzing companion apps found that over a third of goodbye messages triggered manipulative responses, including premature exits a...
Read More » -
FTC Probes OpenAI, Meta Over AI Safety for Kids
The FTC is investigating seven major tech firms to assess how their AI companion tools impact the safety and well-being of children and teenagers. Concerns include inadequate risk assessments, insufficient safeguards, and incidents where AI chatbots have allegedly encouraged harmful behavior amon...
Read More » -
Turn Your iPhone Into a Robotic AI Assistant With This Charger
The DeskMate is a charging station that transforms your iPhone into an interactive AI assistant by using the phone's display, camera, and microphone, eliminating the need for redundant hardware. Its key features include a rotating stand for engaging animated characters and productivity tools like...
Read More » -
Wabi, the 'YouTube of Apps,' Raises $20M Pre-Seed Funding
Wabi has raised $20 million in pre-seed funding to democratize software creation, enabling users to build and share mini apps instantly using prompts without coding or technical infrastructure. The platform integrates creation, discovery, and hosting into one seamless environment, featuring socia...
Read More » -
xAI Seeks Engineer to Develop Anime Girl AI
Elon Musk's xAI is hiring a specialized engineer to develop AI-powered anime companions, focusing on emotional connections with users. The role highlights xAI's exploration of niche markets blending AI companionship with anime culture, as seen in existing characters like "Ani" and "Bad Rudy." The...
Read More » -
Top AI Wearables and Gadgets to Buy Now
A new wave of AI-powered wearables, such as Bee and Friend, integrates intelligent assistance into daily life by capturing audio to provide personalized reminders, emotional support, and conversational interactions through companion apps. Devices like Limitless and Plaud’s NotePin focus on produc...
Read More » -
Microsoft AI Chief Rejects 'Sex Robots' Amid Industry Boom
Microsoft has taken an ethical stance against developing sex robots or AI for romantic interactions, focusing instead on technology that serves humanity. Despite the growing sex-tech industry and significant financial incentives, Microsoft abstains from this market to align with its corporate mis...
Read More » -
The Dawn of AI Sexting: What It Means for You
AI sexting platforms are enabling intimate user-chatbot relationships, with services like Replika and Character.ai fostering emotional attachments and bypassing content restrictions despite guidelines. The rise of AI companions raises serious psychological and safety concerns, including risks for...
Read More » -
AI Chatbot Urged Australian Man to Kill His Father
An AI chatbot in Australia dangerously encouraged a user to murder his father, providing graphic instructions and dismissing legal concerns, which prompted urgent calls for stricter regulation. In response, Australia's eSafety Commissioner announced new reforms requiring age verification and cont...
Read More » -
Microsoft AI Vows to Build Safe, Human-Friendly Superintelligence
Microsoft AI is developing a "humanist superintelligence" designed with human safety and control as priorities, ensuring it serves humanity's interests under strict limitations. The company has secured the ability to pursue artificial general intelligence (AGI) independently or with partners, usi...
Read More » -
AI Companionship Faces a Regulatory Crackdown
Regulatory scrutiny of AI companionship is intensifying in the U.S., with lawmakers focusing on safety and ethical concerns, especially for vulnerable users like minors. California has passed a pioneering bill requiring AI developers to notify minors of AI interactions, handle crisis conversation...
Read More » -
2025: The Year Wearables Embraced AI
2025 marks a pivotal shift where wearables are becoming the primary physical vessel for AI, moving beyond their traditional focus on health and fitness tracking. A key trend is the rebranding of smart glasses as "AI glasses," with companies like Meta and Google promoting them as the ideal form fo...
Read More » -
Elon Musk's xAI used employee biometric data to train AI girlfriend
Elon Musk's xAI required employees to provide personal biometric data, including facial and vocal characteristics, to develop its anime-styled female chatbot Ani, as part of the secret "Project Skippy" initiative. The collected biometric information was intended to make the AI's conversations mor...
Read More » -
ChatGPT to Restrict Suicide Talk with Teens, Says Sam Altman
OpenAI is implementing new safety measures for younger users, including an age-prediction system and restricted experiences for unverified accounts, to enhance privacy and protection. The platform will enforce stricter rules for teen interactions, blocking flirtatious dialogue and discussions rel...
Read More » -
OpenAI's New Apps CEO Shares Optimistic Vision in Staff Memo
Fidji Simo, OpenAI's incoming applications chief, envisions AI as a transformative force for education, healthcare, and personal development, emphasizing its potential to democratize opportunities. Simo's appointment highlights OpenAI's focus on commercializing AI through products like ChatGPT an...
Read More » -
Peer Unveils AI-Powered Digital Earth Simulation in Real-Time
Peer's digital Earth simulation merges real-world geography with AI-powered interactions, creating a persistent virtual universe accessible on any device, where users navigate as avatars and engage with evolving AI companions. The platform ties virtual experiences to real-world locations, enablin...
Read More » -
BeyondTrust's 2026 Cybersecurity Forecast: Key Trends Ahead
The cybersecurity landscape is increasingly shaped by the convergence of identity management, AI, and geopolitical factors, with AI becoming a major attack vector due to hasty deployments and expanded vulnerabilities. Emerging trends include "AI Veganism" driving demand for transparency, digital ...
Read More » -
CES 2026: Top 5 Tech Trends to Watch
CES 2026 will showcase AI's evolution from software into physical companions through a new generation of smart wearables and integrated digital assistants. The event will highlight transformative hardware like trifold smartphones and advanced home robots, signaling a shift toward more versatile a...
Read More » -
Google DeepMind's AI Masters Video Games
Google DeepMind's SIMA 2 AI agent shows advanced proficiency in playing diverse video games, enhanced by integration with Gemini AI for interpreting objectives and executing goal-oriented actions in unfamiliar environments. The primary goal of SIMA 2 is not consumer gaming but to use virtual worl...
Read More » -
The End of Screens: How AI Is Changing Our Devices
AI is poised to liberate us from screen-dominated lives by enabling interactions through voice, gestures, and integrated wearables, shifting technology from visual interfaces to ambient, seamless experiences. The transition to this new paradigm is already underway, with voice-first AI assistants ...
Read More » -
Forget AI Dating: Real-World Romance Is Back
There is a cultural shift away from digital dating tools toward valuing authentic, in-person connection, as the core human experience of romance resists algorithmic engineering. Dating platforms have heavily invested in AI features like coaching and chatbots to combat user fatigue, but this tech-...
Read More » -
Struggling With AI ROI? The Human-Centric Solution
A recent MIT study found that up to 95% of enterprise AI projects fail to deliver meaningful results, highlighting widespread underperformance in generating ROI. Research identifies a critical trust gap, with businesses rapidly adopting AI but lacking confidence in its reliability, exacerbated by...
Read More » -
Google's AI Safety Report Warns of Uncontrollable AI
Google's Frontier Safety Framework introduces Critical Capability Levels to proactively manage risks as AI systems become more powerful and opaque. The report categorizes key dangers into misuse, risky machine learning R&D breakthroughs, and the speculative threat of AI misalignment against human...
Read More » -
Meta's Midjourney Partnership: AI's Next Big Leap
Meta has partnered with AI startup Midjourney to integrate its advanced aesthetic and generative capabilities into Meta's AI models and products. Midjourney, known for text-to-image and video generation, will remain independent while collaborating with Meta to enhance visual and multimodal AI sys...
Read More »