AI companion apps: a census of the US App Store

The numbers

• 225AI companion apps with 100+ US ratings, from 1,555 listings checked
• 42%are roleplay platforms: many characters, stories you chat through
• 27%are built around romance, but they hold 3% of all ratings
• 34%of listings say the AI remembers you or your conversations
• 9 of 225say the companion messages you first (4%)
• 0listings mention older adults, people over 50 or retirement

Source for every figure: the mysoftly.ai App Store census, US storefront, October 11, 2026. Each number is a count of what the apps' own listings say; the method explains the rules.

Who the apps are built for

We sorted each app by how its own listing describes it. A roleplay platform offers a library of characters and stories. A romance app is framed as a partner, girlfriend, boyfriend or soulmate. A friend or support app is framed as someone to talk to, listen and help with how you feel. A personal AI is presented as someone you talk to for advice and everyday questions. "Mixed" listings give two of these equal weight.

Counted by ratings instead of by apps, the picture changes. Roleplay platforms hold 64% of all ratings in the census and friend or support apps 30%. Romance apps are numerous but small: 27% of the apps, 3% of the ratings. Of the 25 most-rated apps, 14 are roleplay platforms, 8 are friend or support apps and 2 are romance apps.

What the listings promise

Memory

77 of 225 listings (34%) say the AI remembers you, your conversations or the details you share, or advertise a memory feature such as long-term memory. Our guide to how AI companion memory works explains what memory in these apps can and cannot do.

Messaging first

9 listings (4%) say the companion texts, greets or checks in on you on its own. Every other listing describes a chat that starts when you open the app. Our guide to AI that texts you first covers how the apps that do it work.

Age

No listing in the census mentions older adults, people over 50, the fifties or sixties, or retirement. Surveys show people in their fifties and sixties do use AI companions: our AI companion statistics page collects the figures from Pew, AARP and Elon University.

How fresh the apps are

122 of the 225 apps (54%) had an update in the 90 days before the count, and 41 (18%) had none for more than a year. 59 (26%) first appeared on the store in the past twelve months. Every app runs on iPhone and iPad; 5 also list a Mac version, and 23 mention Android, the web or a desktop version in their description.

All 225 apps

Sorted by US ratings. Tap a column heading to sort, or narrow the list with the filters. "Says it remembers" and "Says it messages first" record what each listing says; "Not stated" means the listing does not say it, not that the app lacks it.

225 apps

Download the data (CSV, 225 apps)

If you are choosing one

This census counts what the listings say; it does not rank the apps. For a recommendation, our best AI companion apps guide compares the main companion apps side by side on memory, messaging first, content and price, with screenshots from each app. Prices are in what an AI companion costs, taken from each app's own paywall.

Not one of the 225 listings speaks to people over 50, and only 9 say the companion messages you first. My Softly, our app, was built for exactly that gap: an AI companion for iPhone made for people in their fifties and sixties, which remembers what you tell it and checks in on its own. Get it free on the App Store.

Method

Collection. On October 11, 2026 we queried Apple's public iTunes Search API on the US storefront for 28 search terms (ai companion, ai friend, ai girlfriend, ai boyfriend, ai chat character, ai roleplay, virtual companion, ai partner, character ai, ai chatbot friend, talk to ai, ai soulmate, ai relationship, virtual girlfriend, virtual boyfriend, ai character chat, emotional support ai, ai best friend, ai buddy, ai lover, ai husband, ai wife, anime ai chat, ai chat companion, ai companion app, ai pen pal, ai virtual friend, ai confidant), up to 200 results each. We added terms until new ones stopped finding new apps: the last six added between 1 and 14 apps with 100+ ratings each. That gave 1,555 unique listings, of which 638 had 100 or more US ratings.

Who is counted. An app is in the census if its listing offers ongoing conversation with an AI character or persona: a companion, friend, partner or roleplay character, an AI you talk to for emotional support, or a personal AI presented as someone to talk to. Left out: general AI assistants with no companion persona, study and language tools, image and video generators, AI text-adventure games where you play a story rather than talk with a character, other games, story generators, dating and texting helpers for real relationships, human dating and social apps, journals and structured wellness programmes, astrology apps, kids' apps and utilities. One app, Tolan, is counted although its listing never uses the word "AI", because it offers open conversation with characters and its developer's site presents it as an AI companion.

How each app is classified. Everything comes from the app's own US listing: its name, description, genre, devices, dates, rating count and age rating. A keyword pass scores each listing for roleplay, romance, friendship and assistant language (the app's name counts three times) and flags memory, messaging-first and older-adult language. Then every decision was read by hand: all 638 candidates by name and the doubtful ones in full. A listing is "Mixed" when two types carry equal weight. Memory counts only claims that the AI remembers you or your conversations, or a named memory feature; a character's written backstory or a gallery of saved moments does not count. Messaging first counts only a companion that contacts you on its own; mood check-ins you start yourself do not count. Every manual decision is recorded with its reason, so the next edition can be compared rule for rule.

Limits. The search interface returns at most 200 apps per term and does not return a listing's subtitle or promotional text, so the flags read the name and description only. It covers the US App Store only, and iOS publishes no install counts, so ratings stand in for popularity. Apps with fewer than 100 US ratings are left out, which leaves out many new apps. A listing's claims are recorded as claims; this census does not test whether any app does what its listing says. The census carries no prices: a store listing's purchase box lists every product a developer has made, including ones it no longer sells, so prices live in our cost guide, read from each app's own paywall.

Next edition. We will repeat the count each quarter with the same terms and rules (next: January 2027) and add a section on what changed: new apps, apps that left the store, and the biggest movers in ratings.

How to cite this

My Softly (2026). "AI companion apps: a census of the US App Store," October 2026 edition, data collected October 11, 2026. https://mysoftly.ai/guides/ai-companion-apps

You are welcome to use the figures and the CSV under CC BY 4.0; please name mysoftly.ai and link this page.

Update log

• October 11, 2026: first edition. 225 apps with 100+ US ratings from 28 search terms.

Sources

• Apple iTunes Search API, US storefront (country=us, entity=software, limit=200), 28 search terms, queried October 11, 2026. Each app's name, description, genre, supported devices, release and update dates, rating count and age rating. Apple Search API documentation
• Tolan developer site, read October 11, 2026, for the one manual inclusion noted in the method. tolans.com