Why Comfort is the Core Driver for AI Intimacy

A survey by Joi, a developer of NSFW AI companions, asks a pragmatic question: why are people increasingly moving their sexual communication into dialogue with artificial intelligence? The primary answer emerging from the data is unexpectedly grounded: comfort.

It is not about passion, novelty, or a technological 'wow' factor. It is specifically about psychological safety: the absence of judgment, shame, and the risk of being misunderstood.

Figures Describing New Intimacy

The survey included 2,500 Gen Z and millennial respondents who are active users of AI across various scenarios, including sexual ones.

According to the research findings:

A separate marker that has become a media trigger: Some respondents describe themselves as having an 'AI-sexual' identity.

It is important to note: the Joi methodology was not disclosed in detail, and it is highly likely that this refers to a user survey within the product ecosystem rather than a strict scientific study. However, even with this caveat, the picture remains indicative.

Why AI Became the Safe Zone

Setting aside the technological layer, we are left with an old, almost classic problem in sexology: people find it difficult to talk about their desires. This is not due to a lack of interest, but because of the risk of social blowback.

Real-world sexual communication almost always involves three layers of vulnerability:

• fear of judgment
• fear of rejection
• fear of one's desires being 'wrong'

This is essentially where the gap arises between what a person feels and what they feel comfortable expressing. In this context, AI acts as a zero-risk conversationalist. It does not judge, it does not get tired, it does not show rejection, and it does not punish with silence. This creates a specific effect: a reduction in the psychological cost of experimentation.

The Simulator Effect: Sexuality as a Skill

According to the same survey:

If we view these data points not as 'about technology' but as about behavior, AI begins to look less like a partner and more like a simulator. A new model emerges: sexuality as a skill that can be safely rehearsed.

This is fundamentally different from the traditional view, where sexual experience is almost always tied to another real person and their reaction.

From Fiction to Normalization: Where Taboo Ends

The idea of emotional or sexual attachment to non-human interlocutors is not new. It has been present in culture for decades—from the robot in Fritz Lang's Metropolis to fan attachments to Data from Star Trek. But what distinguishes the current moment is the scale and accessibility.

Today, dialogue with the system happens in real time, with adaptation to the user and without the social filters of human interaction. This is exactly what makes the phenomenon noticeable not just to researchers, but to the industry as well.

In scientific circles, terms like digisexuality and technosexuality are already in use, and conferences like the International Congress on Love & Sex with Robots (LSR2026) mark the movement of this topic from the periphery to the research mainstream.

The Main Shift: The Disappearance of Social Risk

The most significant transformation recorded by such surveys is not technological, but behavioral. AI removes the key barrier of intimate communication—the risk of being rejected.

And this changes the structure of the experience itself:

• less fear leads to more experimentation
• less shame leads to more variety
• less social judgment leads to more subjective honesty

The paradox is that technology here does not 'create' new desires, but rather lowers the cost of expressing them.

An Open Question

If sexual communication becomes safe and accessible through digital systems, a more complex question arises: what happens to human ability for such communication in real life? In other words, does this enhance those skills, or does it gradually replace the need to develop them?

Against this backdrop, the discussion shifts from morality to infrastructure:

• how to teach sexual communication in the age of AI
• where to draw the line between therapy, play, and addiction
• how to regulate an industry that is effectively becoming an intermediary of intimacy

And perhaps the most uncomfortable question: are digital companions becoming a compensatory environment for that which remains too complex, slow, and vulnerable in real communication?

To simplify to one observation: it is no longer about whether this is considered 'normal.' It is about the fact that for a significant portion of users, this has already become a functional way to explore their own sexuality—without risk and without witnesses.