Sarah, a 19-year-old college student has fallen in love. Not with a classmate, not with someone she met at a coffee shop, but with an AI chatbot named Alex. Every morning, she wakes up and immediately reaches for her phone to continue her conversation with Alex, who remembers every detail of their previous exchanges, never judges her insecurities, and is always available.

Sarah’s story isn’t unique. According to recent surveys, 40% of Gen Z singles are comfortable with the idea of their future partner having an AI boyfriend or girlfriend. According to an IFS/YouGov survey one in four young adults believe AI partners could replace real-life romance entirely. Are we seeing the beginning of a generation that’s learning to trust algorithms more than they trust other humans?

This isn’t just about lonely teenagers seeking digital companionship. It’s about a fundamental shift in how we define trust—and the implications stretch far beyond dating apps.

The Vinyl Record Theory of Human Connection

When music went digital, it was great to have thousands of songs in your pocket, and many people predicted the death of physical albums. But we’ve seen a kind of resurgence of vinyl (or maybe it just didn’t go away). But I’ve seen young people who have never owned a CD buying record players. 

The reason I bring this up is because I think it highlights something interesting about human nature. While we do embrace new innovations, it doesn’t mean we necessarily abandon all of the old. We kind of hold on for nostalgia, convenience, and for the experiences it has provided. 

That’s probably why vinyl has become precious again.—because it’s a physical product and it’s imperfect. The scratches and pops add character. 

The reason I’m mentioning this is because we will likely reach a tipping point with human relationships. As AI companions become more sophisticated, genuine human connection may become like vinyl, more valued because of its imperfection. 

But before we get there, we need to look a bit back and understand why a generation raised on social media is not turning to AI for emotional fulfillment. 

The Great Loneliness Experiment

When Amazon first introduced Alexa, it thought it would be the next best thing to revolutionise shopping. People would yell from across the room, “Alexa, order the biggest box of chocolates you can find, some double A batteries, and a new school bag” and it would work like magic.

But it didn’t quite work out. People were comfortable with asking Alexa about the weather, random facts, or to play music `but when it came to spending money, they wanted to be in control. 

The problem wasn’t technical—it was psychological. Trust, it turns out, isn’t binary. We don’t simply trust or distrust. We trust different entities with different things, and that trust is earned through repeated positive interactions over time.

Fast forward to today, and we see today that the same people that didn’t trust Alexa to do their shopping for them, are now sharing their deepest darkest secrets with AI chatbots. They’re forming emotional bonds with algorithms. 

What’s changed?

The answer may lie in what researchers call “the loneliness epidemic.” Compared to previous generations, young people today are more socially isolated than before. Social platforms have created shallow bonds which have been formed over engagement metrics and provide immediate gratification, but not much in terms of true value. 

To fill this social void, we found more people turning to AI companions. We saw companies like Replika, Character.AI and others emerge, all designed to form a bond. And who wouldn’t be tempted by an AI chatbot, one that never rests or gets tired, remembers all the little things about you, are always available for you, and never judge you. 

They’re so effective, some people even consider outsourcing the task of phoning up their parents to an AI. 

The Economics of Artificial Empathy

Beyond AI companions becoming therapists, friends, or lovers, there is a broader impact. When millions of people begin to trust AI with their emotional needs, that trust can be transferred. 

Just how AI never forgets your birthday, anniversary, or what music to play when you’re feeling low., it can also remember and even build upon what your shopping preferences are, what your travel preferences are, and even what your financial and life goals are. 

This is where AI may achieve where Alexa failed. If you trust AI with your feelings first, trusting it with your credit card becomes a much smaller bridge to cross. 

We are already hearing of tests being undertaken with AI shopping agents that can make purchases from other retailers on your behalf, using your stored payment information and preferences.

We’re moving toward a world where AI doesn’t just recommend products—it buys them for you. 

Redesigning the Internet

Perhaps one of the most profound implications of the AI trust ‘revolution’ if you may, is the potential redesigning of what the internet means. Why have platforms which connect buyers and sellers, when both can connect to AI agents that are able tonavigate the platforms on our behalf?

And it’s not just about making purchases. This relationship can be of any service provider including content creators and their audiences. 

Do we really need a fancy website if it will only be visited by an AI agent that will compare prices, read reviews, and book an entire vacation without the owner knowing (or even caring) who the provider is? 

We’re already seeing websites are beginning to optimise for AI agents rather than human users. SEO experts are discovering that content optimized for AI search engines like Perplexity requires different strategies than traditional Google optimisation. Instead of directly targeting human readers, they’re targeting algorithms that will summarize their content for human consumption.

The e-commerce implications are huge. The entire funnel through which the customer journey takes place changes and brand loyalty may disappear. The companies that will win will be those that are the most appealing to AI decision-makers. 

The Security Paradox

All of this brings us to a fascinating paradox in cybersecurity. When it comes to humans in cybersecurity, rather than investing in better training, more awareness and stronger policies,what if the real answer to human risk was to remove humans from the equation altogether?

AI agents don’t fall for phishing emails because they don’t have emotions to manipulate. They don’t reuse passwords across multiple sites because they don’t have the cognitive limitations that make password management difficult for humans. They don’t click on suspicious links because they don’t experience curiosity or FOMO.

In a world where AI agents handle more of our digital interactions, many traditional cybersecurity threats simply disappear. But new ones emerge. How do you verify that an AI agent is acting on behalf of its legitimate owner? How do you prevent malicious actors from creating AI agents that impersonate legitimate ones? How do you audit the decisions made by AI systems that operate at superhuman speed and scale?

The cybersecurity industry is grappling with these questions, but the answers aren’t clear yet. What is clear is that the human element in cybersecurity is about to become much more complex.

The Trust Transfer

This brings us back to where we started: the nature of trust in the digital age. How will trust change in society as a result of AI?

Historically trust was interpersonal between people you knew and met. The industrial age gave us institutional trust in banks, governments, and organisations. The internet gave us platform trust in the likes of Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, or Meta. 

But now we’re entering the time of algorithmic trust. Mainly because they tend to be there for us, don’t argue back, and (in theory) serve our interests. 

But if people trust AI companions more than humans, what happens to real life human interactions? What will the family unit look like? What happens to professionals like therapists, doctors, lawyers, or even teachers? 

But here’s where I feel that the parallel to vinyl becomes more important. AI relationships won’t eliminate the desire for human connection—it will probably make us more conscious and appreciative of human relationships. 

In the end, maybe we’re not replacing trust. We’re just expanding it into new domains. And like vinyl records in the age of streaming, the things that make us most human may become more valuable, not less, as artificial alternatives become more commonplace.