Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
As AI companions become increasingly embedded in everyday emotional support, it remains unclear how initial attraction develops into relationship satisfaction and emotional attachment amid AI anxiety and algorithmic awareness. This study examines the Temporal Sedimentation Model of AI Intimacy (TSM-AI) in China. Using a sequential explanatory mixed-methods design, Study 1 surveyed 615 AI companion users recruited through criterion-based online convenience sampling between July and August 2025, with data analyzed using SPSS 26 and Mplus 8. Study 2 involved 19 semi-structured interviews using purposive maximum-variation sampling between August and November 2025, with transcripts coded in NVivo 12. Results show that perceived attraction is associated with emotional attachment primarily through relationship satisfaction. AI anxiety is negatively associated with perceived attraction and satisfaction, while algorithmic awareness attenuates these associations. Interviews further illustrate that users experience AI companions as controllable yet ambivalent safe spaces where comfort, dependence, privacy concerns, and infrastructural distrust coexist.
Zhang et al. (Fri,) studied this question.