High-tech sex toy brand Lovense have caused a stir at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas by showcasing their new AI companion ‘Emily‘. What’s so special about that, you may be asking? Well, with Emily as your AI girlfriend, you can actually touch her. This isn’t the first ‘AI love doll’ – Realbotix and others have similar products – but a sex toy company joining the race to build the first true sex robots means that it really might not be so long until your AI girlfriend can sit, talk, and cuddle with you on the sofa, before walking arm-in-arm with you to the bedroom.
The attractive and highly realistic doll is still pretty much as limited as its handful of competitors in the AI doll market. It’s capable of a few basic facial expressions and moves its lips as it speaks. It’s not even known for sure if she has a vagina, although the reticence of Lovense to share that info may be due to rules at CES prohibiting ‘anatomically correct sex toys’ (something that Autoblow inventor Brian Sloan claimed was discriminatory against men a few years back). However Lovense claim that she is fully intergrated with the Lovense ecosystem. Late last year, the company introduced their own AI companions that it claimed could remotely operate a user’s (Lovense) masturbator. It would be pretty cool indeed if she could contract her vagina (if she has one) or if the user could place a Lovense masturbator inside her which the AI could operate.
Interestingly, Lovense are marketing the doll as an aid to improve human interaction and social skills, though this might be another nod to CES for allowing them to showcase a sex doll. The doll is expected to cost a whopping $4-8K and is available to pre-order now with a deposit of $200.
Realbotix were also present at CES again, although they weren’t even portraying their latest works as AI companions as such. Their dolls are a bit more advanced than Emily, and more like true robots, although they are rooted on rotatable wheels. Aimed at areas such as the hospitality industry, Realbotix – formerly owned by RealDoll – still have a stated aim of creating AI companions. Their dolls are fully modular and are powered by a variety of LLMs such as ChatGPT or Gemini according to your preference.
