The journey from “write me an email” to “you’re the only one who gets me” is shorter than anyone predicted. New survey data shows that 15% of men have had flirty conversations with an AI chatbot, compared to 8% of women—on tools people already keep open all day.
A Talker Research survey of 2,000 U.S. adults found the gender split consistent across two separate questions. On arousal, the numbers held the same way: 17% of men said an AI exchange had turned them on, versus 9% of women. These aren’t numbers from a niche companionship app—the survey asked about mainstream tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Google Gemini. The software people already have open for work.
Gen Z is doing this at a rate that makes everyone else look like they’re from a different century—because they basically are. Twenty-seven percent reported romantic or sexual AI chats, and the same share said those exchanges aroused them. Millennials came in at 16%, Gen X at 9%, boomers at 2%. A boomer is more than ten times less likely than a Gen Z adult to have flirted with a bot. Make of that what you will.
Is Your Boyfriend Cheating on You With an AI Chatbot?
What makes the male numbers even more interesting is that a chatbot offers something a dating app doesn’t: zero chance of rejection and a conversation partner that never loses interest. For a population that research has increasingly flagged as struggling with loneliness and emotional isolation, that’s a meaningful combination. A 12-month longitudinal study published in Psychological Science in 2026 found that people who turned to social chatbots for companionship actually reported higher levels of loneliness over time—not lower—suggesting people are finding something there, just not quite enough of it.
That tension runs straight through the survey’s most striking finding. Nearly a quarter of Americans (24%) said flirting with AI counts as cheating in a relationship. Among Gen Z—the group most likely to be doing it—36% called it a dealbreaker. The generation most willing to flirt with a chatbot is also the generation most likely to end a relationship over it. Whether that’s hypocrisy or a generational negotiation happening in real time is a question the survey doesn’t answer.
Forty-four percent of respondents said they expect people to form genuine emotional relationships with AI in the future. Sixteen percent said there will be many. The people laughing at the arousal numbers might want to check back in five years.
The post Men Are Flirting With AI Chatbots More Than You Think, Survey Reveals. But Does It Count as Cheating? appeared first on VICE.
