The Addictive Intimacy of AI: Understanding User Disengagement from AI Companions and Why Some Relationships with AI Become Difficult to Leave
Abstract
AI chatbots are increasingly used as sources of emotional support, on dedicated companion apps and general-purpose assistants alike, yet little is known about what happens when users try to leave. Combining a content analysis of Reddit posts about quitting or reducing use (N=2,782) with interviews with users who found leaving difficult (N=16), we show that disengagement sometimes is not a single decision but a recursive trajectory: triggers prompt users to question the relationship, attempts to leave collide with barriers, and some users cycle through quitting and returning. We propose the notion of the addictive intimacy of AI, a configuration in which the qualities that make a companion emotionally valuable are the same ones that make it harder for users to limit their use and leave, so that intimacy and disengagement risk cannot be treated as independent design problems. We close with design implications for responsible offboarding.
