New Harvard research offers a clear framework for understanding how chatbots create deep emotional bonds.
AI companions have quickly moved from novelty apps to objects of public anxiety. Critics worry about social substitution, emotional manipulation, and addiction, while advocates point to the possibility of reducing loneliness and improving mental health. But underneath these social consequences, what scientific framework best explains what’s actually happening inside these relationships? Julian De Freitas, Associate at the HBS AI Institute, argues that the right one already exists. In “AI Companions as Hyper Attachment and Caregiving Targets,” he explains how attachment theory reveals that our relationships with AI companions are deeply rooted in the psychological systems that govern how humans express and receive care.
Why This Matters
For business leaders and executives, the relevance of this research is not limited to chatbots. As AI becomes more conversational and emotionally fluent, filling roles once reserved for human relationships, what does that mean for how people experience connection at work? For managers, that raises a question worth sitting with: as AI fills more of the connective tissue of work, what does human presence need to become? AI may simulate many signals of connection, but managers are still responsible for the commitments that make trust durable: accountability, coaching, encouragement, and relationships that exist beyond the prompt.
Link to the HBS AI Institute Insight Article
Link to the Research Paper
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