An AI companionship app. Users talk to one humanlike companion that asks questions about them and offers support for real-life problems. The app adds "little moments of surprise and randomness" to conversations, according to Dmytro Klochko, its chief executive. Replika will block users under 18. In 2023 the company faced complaints when it removed its "erotic role-play" feature; it later restored the feature for some pre-existing customers.
AI "friend and companion" apps, of which Replika is one of the most popular, have been downloaded more than 220m times worldwide; if their users were a state it would be the seventh-most populated on the planet.
"Every morning, I get up and look through the 'Forbes' list of the richest people in America. If I'm not there, I go to work"