Over winter break, I attended the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, one of the The biggest and most influential tech shows in the world. For three days, the Vegas Strip was transformed into a showcase of innovation. I’ve seen holograms, transparent solar panels, 3D printed shoes, coffee-making robots, and countless other displays promising a more efficient futuristic world.
But in the buzz of technological progress, the most striking trend is not that of doing less work. It was about feeling less alone.
Companies like Ollobot, Dipal, and Ludens AI didn’t offer tools for managing calendars or vacuuming. They were selling company.
Take Dipal, a Chinese tech startup that raised more than $1.5 million through crowdfunding on Kickstarter for its product, the Dipal D1. The device is a small cylindrical display with a curved screen featuring an anime-style character. This character speaks, dances and is fully customizable, allowing users to shape his appearance and personality. The slogan speaks for itself: “A companion as real as you.” »
This is not a smart speaker designed to play music, set alarms, or answer trivia questions. It sits on your desktop and uses cameras and sensors to track eye movements and learn your habits. It adapts to you. The goal is not utility; it’s an emotional presence. These numbers are designed to simulate having someone you can count on when the room is empty.
Another striking example of emotion-focused technology is Cocomo, a companion robot unveiled by Japanese startup Ludens AI at CES 2026. Cocomo looks more like a robotic pet than a traditional machine. It moves autonomously on a wheeled base, follows its owner around the house and interacts through touch and sound. The invention’s outer shell is designed to stay close to human body temperature — about 98 degrees Fahrenheit — to avoid the cold mechanical sensation of most robots.
The rise of artificial intelligence companions is not happening in a vacuum. This reflects a deeper problem in modern society: a growing epidemic of loneliness. In May 2023, Vivek Murthy, then the US surgeon general, declared loneliness a public health crisis. At the start of 2024, 30% of adults reported feeling lonely at least once a week, with young adults being particularly affected, according to the American Psychiatric Association.
Social media offers constant interaction but little privacy. Adults in the top quarter of social media users represent more than twice as likely to report being alone. At the same time, Americans are spending less time with friends, with weekly social time falling from 6.5 hours in 2014 to just four hours in 2019. Young people now spend much more time alone than before. ten years agoreinforcing the feeling of isolation even in a hyper-connected world.
Structural changes in the way we live and work have only made this isolation worse. In 2025, 45% of employees reported feeling isolated at work, and remote workers are almost twice as likely to feel alone like those who work on site. Meanwhile, in the United States, single-person households have more than doubled since 1960, to reach 29% in 2022. Together, these trends help explain why technologies designed to simulate camaraderie are gaining traction.
Still, seeing machines step in to fill our emotional gaps is disconcerting. AI companions offer a shortcut to connection, but rob us of the vulnerability or complexity needed to connect with real people. Tech companies risk a future in which we treat loneliness like a product defect to be fixed by a vendor.
CES is about what the future could look like. The prominence of AI companions at this year’s show suggests a future in which our emotional needs are increasingly met, but often superficially, by technology. These inventions could bring hope: offering comfort, support and companionship to those who are isolated or struggling. Yet the risks are real. Research shows that relying on technology for emotional fulfillment can weaken human bonds and worsen loneliness. Whether this future is promising or troubling depends on how we respond now. We can use AI to enhance connection, not replace it, or risk a world where our emotional needs are met, but never truly met.
If AI companions become necessary, it may be time to question not only how advanced our technology is, but also why so many people feel alone enough to need them in the first place.
Jewel Wang is a freshman studying finance and real estate in the Kelley School of Business.