Online Companions and AI Relationships Keynote: The Psychology of Connection in a Digital Age

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AI Intimacy, the Loneliness Epidemic, and the Connections We Need

What happens when we start believing that machines can give us the same things humans can?

We’re more connected and yet lonelier than ever before. Not long ago, it seemed like social media’s impact headed our list of concerns. AI companions are now being marketed as the solution to our isolation. They’re available 24/7, never distracted, and all about you. Millions are already using them: Replika, ChatGPT, Character.AI. But what does it mean when we start becoming intimate with machines?

Meanwhile, the humans in our lives are right there, all around us, yet somehow harder to reach. Technology gives us constant access to each other, but not always to each other's attention. We're physically present but mentally elsewhere, managing notifications while missing the person we’re with. The loneliness economy is booming, and it's sometimes selling us the least helpful forms of connection.

What’s actually happening to our attention? What’s becoming of our attachment patterns? Is our capacity for intimacy eroding? How can we both understand and take more control of what’s happening? Can we resist?

Elaine Kasket has spent two decades as a cyberpsychologist, researching how technology shapes our closest relationships. In her keynotes, she explores the rise of AI companions, the erosion of human presence, and what genuine connection requires in the modern world.

Elaine draws on psychology research and practice, attachment theory, and her work as an author and consultant for this talk.

What does the Online Companions and AI Relationships Keynote cover?

  • The appeal of AI relationships: Why millions are turning to chatbots for comfort, and what that reveals about loneliness, attachment, our society, and our unmet needs

  • The attention economy at home: How our devices can fragment presence, undermine privacy, and diminish trust within our closest relationships

  • Attachment in the algorithmically driven environment: What happens to our capacity for intimacy and our willingness to do hard things when we can swipe, mute, or switch to something easier; how we’re moving from an attention to an attachment economy

  • Repair and reconnection: How to navigate boundaries, repair relationship ruptures, and achieve fuller presence in device- and information-saturated environments, without retreating from technology altogether

  • Tech in the therapy room: How technology is influencing therapeutic connection and relationships, from AI therapists to ChatGPT emotional support to human therapists using emerging technologies in their work

Why book a keynote on AI and human connections?

AI companions are going mainstream, and most organisations and individuals aren't ready for that reality and its unintended consequences. The questions this raises — about loneliness, intimacy, attention, and what we want and need from our relationships — are urgent and personal, and most people aren't having them, either publicly or at home. A keynote that addresses them directly lands hard because every audience member recognises something of their own lives in it.

Who is the Online Companions and AI Relationships keynote for?

Parenting communities, schools, family wellbeing initiatives, therapists, educators, mental health organisations, and digital literacy programmes. Also relevant for tech companies and product teams building in the relationship and companion space. Available as a keynote, interactive workshop, parent-teen session, or facilitated discussion.

Why book Elaine to speak about online connections?

Elaine is a cyberpsychologist, Counselling Psychologist, and couples therapist — a combination that gives her an unusually grounded perspective on what technology does to our closest relationships. She has spent two decades researching this territory, and has written about it with rigour and candour in Reset. For more before booking, read her perspectives on AI relationships, phubbing, and AI therapy bots, or explore her podcast appearances.

What other keynotes can Elaine deliver?

The themes of Elaine’s Online Companions and AI Relationships talk relate closely to her other topics of expertise and interest, on which she also offers keynotes.

AI is increasingly our companion at work - our assistant, our colleague, maybe even our boss. We’re constantly relating to others at work via technology. Elaine examines what AI adoption means for human motivation and desire at work in her AI at Work keynote.

Increasingly, the phenomenon of AI companions is merging with grief bots (also known as griefbots or death bots). You can dive deeper on this subject with Elaine’s Digital Afterlife: Grief, Technology and AI keynote.

What does using AI companions or having AI relationships mean for our society, our psychology, and our individual and collective mental health? Think more about our wellbeing online in Elaine’s Digital Wellbeing keynote.

Book Elaine through the Speaking Office

For enquiries contact
Andrew Hickman
The Speaking Office
+44 753 843 8455

Book Elaine to Speak