From Friends to Lovers: Understanding Motivations and Barriers in AI Companionship.

Artificial intelligence (AI) companions are increasingly used for social, emotional, and sometimes romantic fulfillment, raising questions about how people perceive and engage with these technologies. This study explored attitudes toward AI companionship and whether interviewer type (AI, human, or unmoderated) affects disclosure or engagement. A mixed-methods design was employed with 135 adult participants, who completed structured interviews including Likert scale items and open-ended questions about their views on AI companions. Most participants (55.6%) expressed hesitancy or resistance toward emotionally significant relationships with AI, although several reported openness to non-intimate or functional companionship such as friendship or mentoring. Motivations for engaging with AI included its non-judgment and trustworthiness, as well as its ability to provide emotional support and optimize daily life. Key barriers involved its lack of physicality, lack of humanity, incapacity to form an emotional connection, and privacy concerns. Participants in the unmoderated condition rated AI as a friend significantly higher than those in the human interviewer condition, and rated AI as equivalent to a human companion and as a potential romantic partner significantly higher than those in both the chatbot and human interviewer conditions. No statistically significant differences emerged across conditions in self-reported honesty. Participants' engagement metrics were generally higher in the human and unmoderated interviews compared to AI. These findings offer methodological insights for research on sensitive topics and highlight the complex, context-dependent ways people relate to AI companionship. Implications for policy, clinical practice, and the design of future AI companion systems are discussed.