Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • 2024
  • Working Paper
  • HBS Working Paper Series

AI Companions Reduce Loneliness

By: Julian De Freitas, Ahmet K. Uğuralp, Zeliha O. Uğuralp and Stefano Puntoni
  • Format:Print
  • | Language:English
  • | Pages:62
ShareBar

Abstract

Chatbots are now able to engage in sophisticated conversations with consumers in the domain of relationships, providing a potential coping solution to widescale societal loneliness. Behavioral research provides little insight into whether these applications are effective at alleviating loneliness. We address this question by focusing on “AI companions”: applications designed to provide consumers with synthetic interaction partners. Studies 1 and 2 find suggestive evidence that consumers use AI companions to alleviate loneliness, by employing a novel methodology for fine-tuning large language models (LLMs) to detect loneliness in conversations and reviews. Study 3 finds that AI companions successfully alleviate loneliness on par only with interacting with another person, and more than other activities such watching YouTube videos. Moreover, consumers underestimate the degree to which AI companions improve their loneliness. Study 4 uses a longitudinal design and finds that an AI companion consistently reduces loneliness over the course of a week. Study 5 provides evidence that both the chatbots’ performance and, especially, whether it makes users feel heard, explain reductions in loneliness. Study 6 provides an additional robustness check for the loneliness-alleviating benefits of AI companions.

Keywords

AI and Machine Learning; Technological Innovation; Behavior; Well-being

Citation

De Freitas, Julian, Ahmet K. Uğuralp, Zeliha O. Uğuralp, and Stefano Puntoni. "AI Companions Reduce Loneliness." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 24-078, June 2024.
  • SSRN
  • Read Now

About The Author

Julian De Freitas

Marketing
→More Publications

More from the Authors

    • June 2025
    • Journal of Consumer Research

    Ideation with Generative AI—In Consumer Research and Beyond

    By: Julian De Freitas, G. Nave and Stefano Puntoni
    • March 2025
    • Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

    Is Personal Identity Intransitive?

    By: J. De Freitas and L. J. Rips
    • February 2025
    • New England Journal of Medicine AI

    Disclosure, Humanizing, and Contextual Vulnerability of Generative AI Chatbots

    By: Julian De Freitas and I. Glenn Cohen
More from the Authors
  • Ideation with Generative AI—In Consumer Research and Beyond By: Julian De Freitas, G. Nave and Stefano Puntoni
  • Is Personal Identity Intransitive? By: J. De Freitas and L. J. Rips
  • Disclosure, Humanizing, and Contextual Vulnerability of Generative AI Chatbots By: Julian De Freitas and I. Glenn Cohen
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Accessibility
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College.