Gen Z Isn’t Leading the AI Companion Shift. Millennials Are

Respondents aged 30 to 45 were substantially more open than those aged 18 to 29 to using an AI companion, according to a 2026 survey of U.S. adults.

If any group were expected to embrace AI girlfriends and boyfriends first, it would be the youngest adults, the generation that grew up with smartphones and treats chatbots as ordinary. A new U.S. survey finds the opposite.

Among respondents aged 30 to 45, 44.7% said they would consider using an AI companion in the future. Among those aged 18 to 29, the figure was 12.5%. Respondents aged 46 to 61 were also considerably more open than the youngest group, at 31.6%, and those aged 62 to 80 came in at 8.6%.

The pattern places Gen Z closer to Baby Boomers than to the generation immediately above them.

The figures come from a 2026 survey on AI romance and modern relationships conducted by AI Girlfriend Coach, a site that tests AI companion apps, through SurveyMonkey Audience on August 26 and 27. It collected 2,150 responses from U.S. adults aged 18 and over; 1,709 were retained after a quality screen removed a cluster of patterned answers. Of those, 184 were aged 18 to 29, 709 were aged 30 to 45, 440 were aged 46 to 61 and 339 were aged 62 to 80. The survey’s generational labels are shorthand for those age brackets, and its findings describe the surveyed sample rather than the U.S. population.

Usage follows the same pattern

The reversal is not confined to a hypothetical question about the future. It shows up in reported use.

Among respondents aged 30 to 45, 20.7% said they currently use an AI girlfriend or boyfriend app, compared with 3.8% of those aged 18 to 29. Counting current and past use together, 40.1% of the 30 to 45 group had used one at some point, against 16.8% of the youngest group. The 46 to 61 group again sat between the two, with 22.7% having used one.

The survey’s authors note that reported usage rates varied by device type even after quality screening, and they caution against treating the adoption figures as precise national estimates. But the direction of the age gap is consistent across the survey’s main measures of openness to AI companionship, which is what makes it worth reporting.

Millennials were also far more open to feelings for an AI

The generational gap extends to emotional attachment.

Asked whether they could imagine developing genuine romantic feelings for an AI, 41.2% of respondents aged 30 to 45 said yes or maybe. Among those aged 18 to 29, 16.8% did. The firm “yes” answer, that they could genuinely fall in love with an AI, was chosen by 11.1% of the 30 to 45 group and 2.7% of the youngest group.

Respondents aged 46 to 61 were again closer to Millennials than to Gen Z, with 31.6% open to feelings and 12.3% saying yes outright.

And more willing to imagine choosing AI over a person

The most striking version of the gap appears on the survey’s strictest question. Respondents were asked whether they could see themselves choosing an extremely realistic AI girlfriend or boyfriend instead of pursuing a human relationship.

Counting only the two affirmative answers, that they could see themselves preferring an AI or would choose one if they could not find a satisfying human relationship, 31.6% of respondents aged 30 to 45 said yes. Among those aged 18 to 29, 8.2% did. Respondents aged 46 to 61 were at 24.5%.

Across the survey’s main measures of openness to AI companionship, the same ordering emerged: respondents aged 30 to 45 first, those aged 46 to 61 second, followed by the youngest and then the oldest adults.

Gen Z hasn’t rejected technology. It prefers a different kind

It would be easy to read this as the youngest generation turning away from AI. The survey suggests something more specific.

Asked what they would rather use if single and looking for companionship, 69.6% of respondents aged 18 to 29 chose dating apps, the highest share of any age group and well above the 55.4% of the 30 to 45 group. Only 2.7% of the youngest respondents chose an AI girlfriend or boyfriend, and just 10.3% would include an AI as an option at all, compared with 29.9% of respondents aged 30 to 45.

The distinction, then, is not between people who use technology in their romantic lives and people who do not. It is between using technology to find another person and using the technology as the companion itself. The youngest respondents were the most committed to the first and the least interested in the second.

What this says about assumptions around age and AI

The result complicates a common assumption in coverage of AI companions: that adoption will follow the familiar curve of every other consumer technology, led by the young and trailed by everyone else.

The survey cannot explain why adults in their 30s and 40s were more receptive. It measured attitudes and reported use, not the reasons behind them, and the differences could reflect life circumstances, relationship history, how each generation encountered these products, or factors the survey did not ask about. Any of those explanations would be speculation.

What the data does establish is that the age curve for AI companionship, at least in this sample, does not follow the pattern someone might expect from a new consumer technology. Openness peaked among adults aged 30 to 45 and fell sharply among the youngest respondents.

The survey also found that attitudes toward AI infidelity were far more uniform across ages than openness to AI companionship: between 43% and 55% of every age group said a partner’s AI romance could count as cheating. Generations disagreed about whether they would want an AI companion, not about whether one would matter.

Not the generation you’d expect

None of this suggests Gen Z will never come around to AI companionship, and the survey captures a single moment in one country. Attitudes can move, and the products are changing quickly.

But the assumption that the youngest adults are driving the shift toward AI girlfriends and boyfriends is not supported by this data. In a survey of 1,709 U.S. adults, the people most likely to consider one, to have tried one, to imagine feelings for one and to picture choosing one over a human relationship were between 30 and 45 years old. The generation that grew up online was, on every one of those measures, among the least interested.