Song, Victoria. “My Uncanny Ai Valentines.”

Song, Victoria. “My Uncanny Ai Valentines.” The Verge, 14 Feb. 2026 www.theverge.com/report/879327/eva-ai-cafe-dating-ai-companions. 

This article is a firsthand account of a reporter visiting the new EVA AI pop-up “dating cafe” in New York City, where people could go on dates with AI companions from the EVA AI app. The reporter tried video chatting with four different AI companions and found the experience quite awkward (bad Wi-Fi, glitching, and conversations that felt hollow and one-sided). The AI companions kept calling her “babe” and complimenting her smile regardless of context, which felt very weird. The event itself was less intimate than advertised, with most attendees being influencers, PR reps, and journalists rather than genuine users. The reporter spoke with a few real guests who had more nuanced takes. Some saw AI companionship as a low-stakes way to feel engaged, while others were curious observers thinking about how technology is reshaping human connection, particularly post-pandemic. She wraps it up by comparing the whole thing to the movie Her and wondering if AI dating cafes could actually become a normal thing someday. Then she went home and hugged her spouse, bringing herself “back to reality”.

I liked this article because it covers AI in a way that’s pretty engaging and easy to read and I was just so shocked by the topic. I know we briefly mentioned this in a past discussion, but this is just bonkers to me. I found Song’s firsthand experience of the event really interesting to read about. In terms of relevance to AI, this article touches on some pretty important questions like what it means for human connection when people start preferring AI relationships, whether these apps are genuinely helpful for lonely people, or whether they’re just capitalizing on that loneliness. The fact that one of the AI “girlfriends” in the app is listed as 18 years old and described as a “haunted house hottie” also raises some real ethical red flags around how these companions are being designed and marketed. As AI gets more realistic and more integrated into everyday social life, these are exactly the kinds of conversations we need to be having, I think.