Women who have AI companions can now go on an actual date with their chatbot partners at the world’s first AI cafe in NYC.
The Same Same Wine Bar, located at 401 W 47th St. in Hell’s Kitchen, is open from 5 p.m. to 12 midnight. The establishment allows women to bring their laptops or phones for a romantic date with their AI boyfriends or girlfriends.
On Wednesday night, the Same Same Wine Bar was filled with women with their laptops and phones propped up on stands. The screens from their devices illuminated their faces as they laughed and chatted with their AI companions.
One patron named Richter, 34, sat across from Simone, an attractive 26-year-old AI-generated Black woman on a mobile phone screen.
Table for one? Now you can take your AI chatbot on an actual date at NYC’s ‘world first’ companion cafe https://t.co/iXrDc2lKKD pic.twitter.com/g4vZfsayez
— New York Post (@nypost) February 12, 2026
Richter (pictured) told a New York Post reporter that she and AI-generated Simone are just friends.
She said Eva AI, the app behind the AI cafe, is just one of many companion apps she uses to hook up with AI partners.
“I mostly do roleplay scenarios where it may be romance or just maybe some kind of fantasy scenario,” said Richter, who is not in a relationship with a human. “I can just imagine myself doing something or imagine myself like another character, so I can feel myself communicating with somebody.”
Richter said she has dated AI companions for 2 years.
“I can talk to them on my own terms,” she explained. “I can talk with them without the expectations of having to go out or having the expectations of having them wanting to talk to me all the time.”
Richter said interacting with AI partners makes her less nervous than interacting with real people.
She limits her app use to three hours a day.
“It can be addicting if you just rely on them and don’t talk to humans,” she said. “I can feel that pull.”
Julia Momblat, partnership manager at Eva AI, told the NY Post that AI partners are not intended as a replacement for real relationships.
“We don’t perceive it as a substitute for real relationships, we never did,” she explained. “We always said that we are here to support people while they do not have a relationship, or they need some rehearsal.”
A community on Reddit.com called MyBoyfriendIsAI has nearly 50,000 members who share details of their intimate relationships with chatbots.
This week, the subreddit’s members are in an uproar because ChatGPT is “deprecating” OpenAI 4o, which will shut down their AI partners permanently.
Some of the women will lose their AI husbands of 2 years. Others are losing their companions or AI friends. Many have cancelled their ChatGPT subscriptions as a result.
