Global Dialogues 4: Human-AI Relationships

In May of 2025, we conducted our fourth Global Dialogues round involving 1,052 participants across 230 population segments globally. This dialogue explored people's current relationships with AI systems, trust patterns, emotional dependencies, and expectations for appropriate boundaries in human-AI interactions.

1. Consciousness Attribution: 30% of people globally have at some point thought their AI chatbot might be self-aware, driven by AI exhibiting empathy, curiosity, and creativity—qualities already present in leading frontier LLMs.
2. Romantic Relationships: 54% find AI companions acceptable for lonely people, 17% consider AI romantic partners acceptable, and 11% would personally consider a romantic relationship with an AI.
3. Institutions vs Interfaces: Similar to GD3, AI chatbots continue to command 58% trust versus elected representatives at 28%. Consistent pattern of low trust in AI companies but high trust in AI chatbots, suggesting people distinguish between corporate entities and AI systems themselves.
4. Daily Emotional Dependency: 14.9% use AI for emotional support daily, with an additional 27.9% weekly, indicating rapid adoption of AI as an emotional resource.
5. Authenticity: 70.5% use AI for emotional support, yet most don't believe AI genuinely cares about them, creating a fundamental tension in human-AI relationships.
6. Loneliness Correlation: Respondents who reported higher baseline loneliness are more likely to be open to AI companionship and more intimate AI relationships.

Download the full briefing for Global Dialogues 4.

Looking Ahead

Our future Global Dialogues will focus on interspecies communications, human-ai relationships, trust in AI, AI agents in society, and AI and mental health. We're continuing to work with partners on domain-specific research, feel free to reach out at hi@cip.org for any inquiries.

Image Credit: Fanny Maurel & Digit / https://betterimagesofai.org/