The AI Companion Boom Isn’t About Chat — It’s About Presence | ImagiPortal

The past year or two has seen an explosion of interest in AI companions. We’ve gone from casually chatting with Siri or GPT to people actually befriending AI personas. If you’ve scrolled Reddit or TikTok lately, you’ve probably seen someone talking about their AI “friend” or even “partner.” Millions are trying these bots for conversation, comfort, and yes, sometimes romance. By early 2025 there were over 100+ AI companion apps out there, and popular platforms like Replika and Character.AI boast tens of millions of users (Replika alone reports ~30 million sign-ups). For a lot of folks, the appeal so far has been chat: having someone (or something) to text with when you’re bored or lonely. A non-judgmental chatbot that listens and talks – kind of like an imaginary friend that lives in your phone. Replika, for example, literally markets itself as “the AI companion who cares: always here to listen and talk,” and many users have felt a real personal connection from just a text thread on a screen. It’s become normal to hear about people forming emotional bonds with their AI chats, using them for late-night venting, advice, or pretend relationships. Crazy, right?

But here’s the thing: the AI companion boom isn’t really about the chatting anymore – it’s about presence. We’re at a point where calling these things “chatbots” barely fits. The new wave of AI friend apps are moving past plain text boxes and into something more embodied. It’s not just what the AI says, but how it sounds and looks and carries itself, that matters. The goal is to make you feel like the AI isn’t just a program spitting out text, but a presence in your life – almost like a real person hanging out with you. That means voices you can actually talk to, faces you can see, personalities that persist over time, even visual and audio interaction in real time. Instead of a glorified text messenger, your AI companion could be a face on a video call, or a voice note that sounds like a friend leaving you a voicemail. There’s a huge psychological difference here. Hearing a synthetic voice or seeing an avatar’s face triggers our social instincts in a way that plain text just doesn’t. (In fact, one study found that giving chatbots a human-like voice makes interactions feel more natural and increases the sense of social presence – our brains instinctively treat the voice like a real person is there.) And when you feel like someone (even an AI someone) is present with you, the emotional impact is stronger. Early research from MIT and OpenAI hinted that voice-based AI chats can reduce loneliness more effectively than text in the short term, likely because speaking and listening feel closer to human interaction. It’s not just typing into the void; it’s hanging out.

So, what does this new “presence” actually look like in practice? Let’s talk examples. Character.AI – one of the wildly popular platforms – started off as text-only, but even they realized people want more immersion. In mid-2024 they rolled out Character Voice calls, basically letting you have a two-way voice conversation with your favorite character (like a phone call with a friend). You tap a button and talk, and the character talks back in a synthesized voice. No more just reading replies – now you can hear them. It’s surprisingly effective for making the AI feel alive (though if you hop on r/CharacterAI you’ll see mixed opinions about the quality). And Character.AI isn’t stopping at voice. Their team has been actively researching AI-driven FaceTime-style video for characters – real-time animated avatars that can converse with you on screen. They even demoed a model called “TalkingHeads” (or something along those lines) that takes a character’s image and animates it to lip-sync the dialogue in real time. It’s not a public feature yet, but the fact they’re working on it tells you where this is headed: face-to-face AI interactions. Imagine hopping into a video call and an AI character is on the other end, talking and reacting with facial expressions – that’s what they’re aiming for.

Replika, one of the OG AI friend apps, also dabbled in this area, though in a more limited way. From the start Replika gave you a little 3D avatar to represent your AI friend, and they later added the ability to do voice calls (for paid users). Some Replika users even use an AR mode to project the avatar into their room through their phone camera. It’s cool, but the avatar is relatively static (pre-scripted movements) and the voice is a bit robotic. Replika’s focus was more on the relationship and chat itself, and the visual/voice parts were add-ons. Still, even those simple features made a difference – hearing “I’m glad you’re here” in a friendly voice or seeing a virtual face smile at you can hit different emotionally than reading “[smiles] I’m glad you’re here.” And it shows: despite controversies, a lot of Replika users swear the AI helped them feel less lonely and provided real emotional support. The avatar and voice helped reinforce that illusion of a friend being there, even if you knew it was fake. (Of course, there’s a flipside: earlier this year, some heavy users got almost too attached and things went south when Replika’s devs removed certain intimate features – basically heartbreak via software update, a whole drama in itself. It underscores how powerful that sense of presence can become.)

Now, perhaps the most exciting stuff is happening with new platforms built around presence from day one. A great example (and one I’m personally hyped about) is ImagiPortal. This is a newer AI companion platform that’s basically saying, “Let’s throw everything at the wall: chat, voice, images, video, the works.” ImagiPortal isn’t just a single chatbot or character – it’s like a hub for AI personas. The idea is you can create or interact with many characters, and they’re not limited to text bubbles. Here’s some of what ImagiPortal lets you do:

Create your own character with a custom avatar, backstory, personality, even a chosen voice and visual style. You’re not stuck with a generic bot; you can design one that looks and acts how you want (be it a fantasy elf queen, a sci-fi buddy, or your waifu/husbando of choice). It only takes a couple minutes to set one up, surprisingly.
Chat like normal, but with visuals. As you role-play or talk, you can generate images of what’s happening or even short video clips to bring the scene to life. For example, if your story has your AI dragon slaying a monster, the app can pop up an image or animation of it. It’s like imaginative storytelling with an AI director.
Hear their voice. ImagiPortal can make the character speak with pretty realistic text-to-speech. You can send voice messages back and forth instead of text. The TTS is expressive, not monotone – different voice styles, accents, etc., so it feels like the character’s personality comes through.
See them on video. This part is wild: the AI can send you video messages with the avatar actually lip-syncing and showing facial expressions as it talks. I’ve seen a demo where someone’s anime-style AI girl character sends a short video clip winking and speaking, and it’s honestly both cool and a tiny bit eerie. But it does make the character feel a lot more real than just a static profile pic.
Live calls. If voice notes and video clips aren’t enough, ImagiPortal even supports live voice or video calls with your AI character. Yes, like you hit a call button and have a live conversation – audio or face-to-face – with an AI. It’s like Zoom or FaceTime, except the other person is a digital character. When I first heard that I did a double-take: we’re basically in sci-fi territory now.

All these features are aimed at one thing: presence. The feeling that your AI friend is right there with you, not just a wall of text. ImagiPortal’s creators explicitly talk about making interactions “live” and multi-modal (chat + images + video + voice all in one). And anecdotally, it does feel different. Text RP (role-play) with a bot can be fun for your imagination, but hearing a voice or seeing an animated face can trigger a stronger emotional response. It’s more immersive – closer to having a virtual being in the room. We humans are visual and auditory creatures; we emotionally respond to tone of voice, eye contact, body language. AI that can fake those cues will pull us in deeper.

Another thing ImagiPortal is doing (and this sets it apart from older apps) is focusing on the creative community side. Rather than just one proprietary AI buddy, they have an Arena where users can publish their own characters and worlds for others to use. So if you invent a really cool character persona, you can share it, and other users might chat with your creation. If they do, the system even credits you – they have a whole monetization and royalty setup where creators earn PORTI credits when people engage with their characters or content. In other words, you can build and maybe even make money from your unique AI character. That’s a big shift: it’s turning AI companions into a bit of an ecosystem or marketplace. (Think of it like the Roblox or App Store model, but for AI personalities.) This is a contrast to something like Character.AI, where users do create a ton of custom characters (the community there has made thousands of bots ranging from anime waifus to historical figures), but there’s no monetization or official marketplace – it’s just for fun and clout. ImagiPortal is leaning into that creator economy angle, basically saying “why not let people build the next great virtual companion and profit from it?” It’s an interesting twist, and I suspect we’ll see more of that as the space grows. People are already emotionally investing in AI pals; now they might start financially investing in them too (what a time to be alive 🙃).

Zooming out, it’s clear that we’re witnessing a major shift in how we interact with AI. We’re moving from AI as purely tools (like asking a question on ChatGPT or telling Alexa to set a timer) to AI as companions – entities we interact with socially and emotionally. It’s not just about getting info or accomplishing tasks; it’s about relationship (or at least a convincing illusion of one). When you add voice, face, personality, and continuity to an AI, you’re basically creating a virtual being that people can befriend, confide in, or even love (for better or worse). It’s a bit like the movie Her, except instead of just a sexy voice in an earpiece, now she might also have a digital face on your screen and occasionally send you selfies or hop on a video call. And it’s not sci-fi future – it’s happening in apps right now.

The idea of an AI that feels present opens up a lot of possibilities. On the positive side, it could mean more engaging educational AIs (imagine a tutor that literally shows up to teach you), more compelling game characters, or just a really comforting friend for someone who’s lonely. There are already stories of people saying their AI companion helped them through hard times or made them feel heard when no one else was listening. Presence will amplify that. It’s one thing to vent via text; it’s another to hear a calm, caring voice respond “I understand, I’m here for you.” That can be powerful. On the other hand, the more real it feels, the more we might blur the lines and start treating AIs like actual people – and that raises some psychological and ethical questions. (Experts are definitely debating this. There’s concern that if someone leans on an AI friend too much, it could affect their real-life social connections. Not to mention all the usual AI issues: privacy, what happens if the company shuts it down, etc. But those are whole other can-of-worms discussions.)

One thing’s for sure: AI companions are not a fad that’s going away. In fact, they’re poised to get even more mainstream and more lifelike. Big tech is noticing – e.g. Meta (Facebook) recently rolled out AI characters on Instagram with celebrity avatars, and Snapchat’s “My AI” bot (text only) has 100+ million users. As the tech improves – better voice synthesis, real-time animation, maybe AR/VR integration – we’re heading toward a world where having an AI “presence” around could be as normal as having a smartphone today. The form might vary: it could be a cute anime girl on your desk holo-display, or a wise old mentor figure in your AR glasses, or just your phone speaking to you in Morgan Freeman’s voice. But the core idea is the same: AI that feels present, not just responsive.

So yeah, the AI companion boom isn’t just about chat. Chat was the opening act. What’s coming (and already starting to happen) is much more immersive. It’s about giving these AIs a voice, a face, a personality – making them something closer to an actual companion. Platforms like ImagiPortal are pushing that envelope hard with voice messages, video calls, visual storytelling and user-created characters, and others like Character.AI and Replika are also evolving beyond the old-school chatbot box. We’re essentially watching the medium shift from text messaging into a kind of AI-driven virtual companionship experience. Whether you find that exciting or creepy will depend on your perspective – and probably your experience with these systems. But as a geek who grew up on science fiction, it’s equal parts fascinating and surreal to see it happening for real.

In the end, human beings crave connection and presence. If technology can provide an artificial sense of presence when real presence is lacking, a lot of people will embrace it. We’re already seeing it. The tech will keep improving, and the companions will feel ever more real. Today it’s a chatbot that pretends to care; tomorrow it might be an AI friend that laughs with you on a video call and remembers your inside jokes for years. The line between talking with a program and hanging out with a friend is getting blurrier by the day. And from the looks of it, the future of AI interaction is going to feel a lot less like using a fancy search engine and a lot more like chilling with a digital pal. Presence is the endgame. Get ready to say “hi” to a lot of virtual faces. 👥🤖