Replika

Market position

The company describes Replika as the first consumer AI app and the world's first AI companion, launched in 2017 before general-purpose chatbots such as ChatGPT. TechCrunch describes Replika as the first major AI companion startup. The company states Replika has been the subject of academic research on AI companionship, citing work by Guingrich & Graziano (arXiv 2311.10599, 2023) and Ta et al. (JMIR, 2020).

The company differentiates Replika from task-oriented AI assistants by emphasizing continuity and intent: persistent memory of the user's life context, proactive follow-ups outside of active sessions, and explicit design toward offline action rather than in-app engagement. It also cites its long operating history as an AI companion product and third-party academic study of its effects.

Technology

Replika is built on a proprietary deep learning architecture per the company's Y Combinator profile. The current product combines long- and short-term conversational memory that organizes a user's people, plans and goals into a persistent model of the user, proactive message generation, avatar customization across multiple visual styles, image generation, internet retrieval, voice calls and video calls, plus integrations that ingest context from other user-authorized apps.

Go-to-market

Individual consumers seeking conversation, emotional support and companionship. A Forbes quotation cited by the company describes its main users as aged 18 to 25; user stories published by the company feature people in situations of relative isolation, including disabled users, relocated migrants and people living far from social networks.

Geography

Headquartered in San Francisco, California (600 Arkansas St, San Francisco, CA 94107), with a user base described as worldwide and an English-language app listing that also supports four additional languages.

History

Replika went through Y Combinator in Winter 2015 as Luka. Closed testing of Replika began in 2016, and the app launched in 2017, reaching two million users within two months according to the company. The product has expanded over time to include voice and video calls, image generation, internet access and app integrations. In May 2026 the company published a manifesto describing a rebuild of Replika "from the ground up" around a stated goal of user flourishing, signed by CEO Dmytro Klochko. Founder Eugenia Kuyda subsequently launched a separate startup, Wabi, which raised $20 million in pre-seed funding announced in November 2025.

Risks & controversies

User reviews on Google Play report subscription-entitlement problems after account deletion, difficulty reaching support, and complaints that paid avatar-customization features did not function as expected. The Google Play listing carries a "Diverse Content: Discretion Advised" Teen rating and the iOS listing an 18+ age rating, and the store discloses that app activity and device identifiers may be shared with third parties despite the company's statement that conversations are private.