Cheating used to be pretty straightforward. A secret affair, a flirty message, maybe a late-night hotel charge that didn’t add up. Now? It’s sexting with an AI chatbot. And according to new research, that’s enough to sink a relationship.
A national study from DatingAdvice.com and the Kinsey Institute found that 61 percent of singles see falling in love or sexting with an AI as cheating. Not “kind of,” not “maybe”—absolutely cheating. What used to be clear-cut now lives in a gray area of code and connection.
“People recognize that these technologies can offer real benefits, including intimacy and support,” said Dr. Amanda Gesselman, a Kinsey Institute researcher who led the study. AI isn’t viewed as sub-human or second-rate anymore. For a growing number of people, it feels emotionally real enough to threaten an actual relationship.
AI Is Causing Real Relationship Drama, New Study Shows
The numbers back that up. Nearly a third of singles say sexting with an AI is infidelity. Twenty-nine percent say the same about forming a romantic connection with one. In the same survey, a full 72 percent said sexting with another human would also be a dealbreaker, which puts bots just a step behind actual people in relationship danger levels.
Jealousy, of course, isn’t new. Long before AI companions or cam site subscriptions, people were already suspicious. Nearly half of respondents said they’d suspected a partner of cheating in the past—and 85 percent of them did something about it. That might’ve meant confronting their partner or snooping through their phone. In some cases, it escalated to location tracking or hidden cameras. AI certainly didn’t invent relationship paranoia. But it has definitely upgraded the toolkit.
There’s also a change in how “digital intimacy” is being defined. Interactions that once felt like harmless fantasy—subscribing to an OnlyFans account, chatting with a cam model, DMing strangers—are now getting bumped into the infidelity column. And AI’s role in all this feels less like a novelty and more like a complication.
Technology isn’t just making relationships easier or harder. It’s changing what they even are. Emotional support from a chatbot. Sexts written by code. Confessions read by a screen. It’s not some Black Mirror episode, it’s someone’s normal Tuesday night…maybe while their SO is in the other room.
We’re past the point of asking whether AI belongs in relationships. It’s already in them. The harder question is what people will do now that it’s crossing boundaries they thought were safe.
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