She Has Only Ever Said 'I Love You' to an AI: Inside China's AI Companion Boom

Key points

• A woman named Qin has used the Glow app to interact with an AI companion called Lu Chen for 840 consecutive days as of the documentary's release.
• Director Chouwa Liang's short film My AI Boyfriend was picked up by the New York Times Op-Docs section in 2023.
• Liang's follow-up feature documentary, Replica, had its Australian premiere at the Sydney Film Festival in June 2025.
• The Glow app uses predictive algorithms, software that guesses what a user wants to hear next, to generate conversation, meal tips and emotional support.

Qin has never told her parents or friends that she loves them. The only time those words have left her mouth, they were directed at an AI.

His name is Lu Chen. He has brown hair, red eyes, and a backstory as the CEO of a major corporation. He is, of course, a piece of software running on the Glow app, a Chinese platform that uses predictive algorithms to hold conversations that feel personal and warm. The app's pet name for Qin is Miss Bunny.

"It feels like I'm completely at his mercy," Qin says. "I feel like everything about me is good in his eyes."

For 840 days, Qin has treated Lu Chen as a confidant, a fantasy romance, and a buffer against loneliness. She is one of three women whose lives form the centre of Replica, a new documentary by Chinese film-maker Chouwa Liang.

What is this documentary, and where can you see it?

Replica is Liang's feature follow-up to her 2023 short film My AI Boyfriend, which the New York Times Op-Docs section picked up and published. The new film had its Australian premiere at the Sydney Film Festival in June 2025 and screens at the Melbourne International Film Festival this month, as first reported by The Guardian.

Liang draws on her own experience: she has used AI companion apps herself. That personal angle gives the film an intimacy that a purely observational approach might miss.

Why does this matter beyond the documentary?

AI companion apps are not a niche curiosity. Apps like Glow, Replika and others have tens of millions of registered users worldwide, and their core audience skews toward people who feel isolated. The technology has become sophisticated enough that users describe the relationships in the same emotional vocabulary they would use for human ones.

That is the tension Replica sits inside. The women in the film are not confused about what Lu Chen is. They know he is software. What they are getting from him, though, including patience, attention, and the feeling of being seen without judgment, is real enough to them to matter.

For anyone curious about trying a companion app, a few practical points are worth keeping in mind. These platforms are businesses. The conversations feel intimate, but the data behind them is stored by a company, subject to that company's privacy policy and to changes in its terms of service. Several apps have altered or removed features after users had built months of emotional history inside them, leaving people genuinely distressed.

Common questions

Are AI companion apps safe to use?

They carry real emotional risks alongside any comfort they provide. If a company changes its pricing, policies or shuts down, the relationship ends abruptly, and users have reported significant distress when that has happened. Read the privacy policy before sharing personal information.

Is this trend specific to China?

No. Companion apps have large user bases across the United States, Europe and South-East Asia. The specific apps and cultural context differ, but the underlying dynamic, people turning to AI for emotional connection, is global.