Maybe you’ve had this experience recently…Someone you love sends you a thoughtful, emotionally intelligent message, but something about it just feels off. 

Your feelings are being validated, and in many ways you’re getting the version of your loved one you’ve always kind of wanted. Except it just doesn’t sound like them. Maybe you find yourself thinking, “Was this written by AI?”

If so, you have entered the vast and largely unexplored emotional territory of navigating the use of AI in relationships. You may have a strong, clear reaction, or you may have no idea how you’re supposed to feel. While this feeling may be lonely, you’re in good company. 

We all find ourselves on the edge of this emerging part of the human experience, a time when we are forced to reckon with how much we want robots to be part of our intimate lives, and a time to grieve that sometimes we aren’t even in control of how and where they show up.

One of the ways we can be caught off guard is when someone else enters AI into the chat as their own voice. In this article, we’ll think together about how to respond.

There is Something Even Better than the Perfect Text

Many of us have spent the last decade or more learning the importance of communication skills, finessing the way we give and receive feedback, and practicing non-violent communication. Furthermore, we’ve done so in a social media landscape that is extraordinarily black and white; it makes sense that we all are trying to be word-perfect. No one wants to be misunderstood.

I wonder if 2026 is a moment for us to rewrite our social contract, though, towards an agreement that there is something even better than the perfect text, the perfect post, the perfect article…and that something is staying human with each other. 

As a therapist, I am finding myself less interested in whether or not my clients choose to use AI (AI is, it seems, everywhere) than how they are using it. And as I learn more about the way people are finding AI helpful in relationships, I notice that more than anything else, I am feeling protective—protective of my clients’ voices, their relationships to imperfection, their ability to say something less than perfect and regulate around the feeling of not knowing how it will land.

Maybe even more than agreeing to stay human with one another, we need to agree to stay weird with one another. I don’t want to lose the bizarre tone my dad uses when he texts me broken sentences like his phone is a walky talky (“Casey, when home?”). I don’t want to forget the way my friend always says “irregardless” (not a word), or the way a partner chooses the weirdest most nonsensical emojis in the middle of serious conversations.

I’ve found myself craving something less “skillful-sounding”, and maybe you have too.

Why AI-Generated Messages Can Feel So Lonely

When we receive a text from our loved one written by AI, we may be struck with the feeling that that person is there, but not really there. This feeling can pull on the heartstrings of early childhood experiences—times when a caregiver might have been physically present, but not emotionally attuned. 

Our nervous systems feel unsettled by superficial presence without a felt connection. Connection is built through a thousand tiny moments of noticing one another and responding to those noticings. To connect with one another, we must encounter each other’s internal workings and processes.  We can’t do that very well when the “processes” we’re encountering are artificial.

Intimacy isn’t created by people communicating perfectly, but rather through falling out of sync and finding each other again. That rhythm of connection, interruption and repair is how we get woven into one another’s attachment systems in a secure way.  Thus, communicating with AI can disrupt the very process by which we form and maintain attachments to people we love.

Before You Accuse Someone of Using AI…

Accusing someone of using ChatGPT is likely to put someone on the defensive, when what we really need is to learn how to have open, non-shaming conversations about whether or not (and how) we want AI to be a resource in that particular relationship. Beneath the frustration that you’re receiving a message likely written by AI, there is often a more vulnerable emotion at play. It may sound something like “I miss you”.

I recommend initiating a conversation about AI separate from the initial conversation that sparked your suspicions. Invite your loved one into a conversation about each of your values around AI generally, and in how you relate to one another. Talk about the values you want to center in the relationship, and how/if using AI fits into those values.

If you make an ask that AI is not part of your relationship communication moving forward, try to be clear about what you are protecting. Perhaps you are centering mutual effort, or authenticity, or challenging perfectionism. You might talk about what parts of their voice (even their quirks and mistakes) help you feel close to them.

If they want to continue to utilize AI as part of their communication, get curious about what AI is doing for them. Some people are utilizing AI to avoid expending their own energy, but others are navigating disabilities, language differences, or executive-functioning challenges. Some people never learned skills for communicating about feelings, needs and desires and are looking to AI for support.

Ultimately, you don’t have control over when and how the people you love use AI, but you can start with making your values known.

Grieving our Losses

We are carrying a grief about AI that is difficult to name because the losses are still emerging. In the context of relationships, we may be grieving what it feels like to know less about how the people around us are actually thinking. We might notice more incongruence between people’s AI-altered words and their behavior that we can’t quite put words to.

Our voices aren’t just a writing style, they’re evidence of the lives we’ve lived—where we come from, what people shaped us, how we learned to respond when we’re sad, or joyful, or scared. Our voices carry residue of everyone we have loved and every place we have belonged. They are worth protecting.

Image Credit: SmartHouse