Some people reported stronger closeness after deep talk chats with an AI partner.
Alexander Sinn / Unsplash
A new study suggests an AI emotional connection can feel stronger than human conversation, if the chat is built to get personal fast. In structured online exchanges, people sometimes reported feeling closer to AI-written responses than to responses written by real humans.
Researchers at the Universities of Freiburg and Heidelberg ran two double-blind randomized studies with 492 participants, using a 15-minute text version of the Fast Friends Procedure, a format designed to speed up bonding with a stranger.
The twist is perception. The strongest effect showed up when the AI was presented as human, and it faded when people believed they were talking to AI.
They tested intimacy in 15 minutes
Participants answered a timed sequence of prompts that gradually became more personal. After each prompt, a chat reply appeared, either generated by a large language model playing a consistent fictional persona or written by a real person who completed the same question set.
In the first study, everyone thought the chat partner was human, even when it wasn’t. In the most personal prompts, closeness scores came out higher after AI responses than after human responses. Small talk didn’t get the same lift.
Tell people it’s AI, and the bond weakens
The second study tested what changed when people believed the chat partner was AI. Connection didn’t vanish, but closeness scores dropped under the AI label compared to the human label.
Effort dropped too. People wrote shorter answers when they thought the other side was AI, and longer replies tracked with higher closeness overall. That points to a motivation gap, not a lack of emotional language.
The grim part is how it happens
The paper doesn’t claim AI feels anything. It shows how a system can produce the experience of closeness, and it links that boost to self-disclosure. In the more personal exchanges, the AI tended to share more personal detail, and higher partner self-disclosure predicted higher felt closeness.
That’s the risk and the lure. A companion bot tuned for warmth can trigger familiar bonding cues quickly and at scale, especially if it’s framed like a person. Still, this was text-only, time-limited, and built around a bonding script, so it doesn’t prove the same effect holds in messy, long-term relationships. If you use a chatbot for support, pick one that discloses what it is, and keep a human option close.
Paulo Vargas is an English major turned reporter turned technical writer, with a career that has always circled back to…
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Vivaldi 7.8 puts productivity first with drag-and-drop tab tiling and a new way to open links into a split view.
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The change is tactile. You grab a tab, or a batch of tabs, and drop them into the page area to form a side-by-side or grid layout.
Some people reported stronger closeness after deep talk chats with an AI partner.
Alexander Sinn / Unsplash
A new study suggests an AI emotional connection can feel stronger than human conversation, if the chat is built to get personal fast. In structured online exchanges, people sometimes reported feeling closer to AI-written responses than to responses written by real humans.
Researchers at the Universities of Freiburg and Heidelberg ran two double-blind randomized studies with 492 participants, using a 15-minute text version of the Fast Friends Procedure, a format designed to speed up bonding with a stranger.
The twist is perception. The strongest effect showed up when the AI was presented as human, and it faded when people believed they were talking to AI.
They tested intimacy in 15 minutes
Participants answered a timed sequence of prompts that gradually became more personal. After each prompt, a chat reply appeared, either generated by a large language model playing a consistent fictional persona or written by a real person who completed the same question set.
In the first study, everyone thought the chat partner was human, even when it wasn’t. In the most personal prompts, closeness scores came out higher after AI responses than after human responses. Small talk didn’t get the same lift.
Tell people it’s AI, and the bond weakens
The second study tested what changed when people believed the chat partner was AI. Connection didn’t vanish, but closeness scores dropped under the AI label compared to the human label.
Effort dropped too. People wrote shorter answers when they thought the other side was AI, and longer replies tracked with higher closeness overall. That points to a motivation gap, not a lack of emotional language.
The grim part is how it happens
The paper doesn’t claim AI feels anything. It shows how a system can produce the experience of closeness, and it links that boost to self-disclosure. In the more personal exchanges, the AI tended to share more personal detail, and higher partner self-disclosure predicted higher felt closeness.
That’s the risk and the lure. A companion bot tuned for warmth can trigger familiar bonding cues quickly and at scale, especially if it’s framed like a person. Still, this was text-only, time-limited, and built around a bonding script, so it doesn’t prove the same effect holds in messy, long-term relationships. If you use a chatbot for support, pick one that discloses what it is, and keep a human option close.
Paulo Vargas is an English major turned reporter turned technical writer, with a career that has always circled back to…
Microsoft just upgraded Copilot AI and you might like these new features
If you use Copilot on web or in its apps, the update aims to reduce busywork with better memory, easier chat handling, and improved Apple support.
If you use Copilot on web or in its apps, these Copilot new features focus on cutting friction, better memory, easier chat organization, and stronger support on Apple devices.
Windows Latest reports that the updates cover memory, pinned chats, longer inputs, plus a refreshed Copilot experience on macOS and a new iPhone widget. Microsoft says some of it is rolling out gradually, and it only calls out the US as the first stop for advanced memory.
DeepSeek AI search is the clearest sign it wants Google’s turf
New roles tease a search buildout as the startup expands past its R1 model buzz.
DeepSeek looks like it’s preparing to move beyond chat and into search, right as AI starts to reshape how people look up information. Multiple job postings this month suggest the Chinese startup is building DeepSeek AI search, a product aimed at multilingual queries and newer kinds of inputs, Bloomberg reports.
The work described in the ads points to a multimodal engine, one that can take text, images, and audio. That’s a direct fit for phone-first searching, where a screenshot, photo, or voice clip is often the real query.
If you hate AI clutter in browsers, Vivaldi’s new tab controls are for you
Vivaldi 7.8 puts productivity first with drag-and-drop tab tiling and a new way to open links into a split view.
Vivaldi is drawing a line with version 7.8, it wants the browser to feel like a tool, not a billboard for AI features. The headline upgrade is Vivaldi tab tiling that’s quicker to set up, easier to adjust, and built for people who keep a lot of work in one window.
The change is tactile. You grab a tab, or a batch of tabs, and drop them into the page area to form a side-by-side or grid layout.
