Covers: November 2025 | Last updated: 2026-05-21 | Edition: 11 of 18 | AI Girlfriends Industry Index →
November 2025 at a Glance
- 23.8 million monthly active users across the AI companion category in November 2025, up +5.3% from 22.6 million in October 2025, per the AI Girlfriends Industry Index.
- The Companion Engagement Index (CEI) registered 65.4 in November 2025, up +0.6 from 64.8 in October 2025, per the AI Girlfriends Industry Index.
- Average Daily Conversation Length reached 22.9 minutes per active user in November 2025, per the AI Girlfriends Industry Index.
- Voice Adoption Rate reached 39% of paid subscribers in November 2025, per the AI Girlfriends Industry Index.
- 30-Day Retention Rate (R30) for new users in November 2025 was 36%, per the AI Girlfriends Industry Index.
- 14.7% of monthly active users held a paid subscription in November 2025, with ARPU at $19.90 per paying user per month, per the AI Girlfriends Industry Index.
Editor’s Note
November 2025 mapped the regulatory landscape as it stood entering 2026. The headline finding was that distribution policy (app stores, payment processors) represented a more immediate and faster-moving constraint than government regulation for most platforms in the category.
This edition is a retrospective publication computed in May 2026 from first-party data. Numbers from October 2025 referenced here match the values published in that edition exactly.
Methodology at a Glance
Retrospective edition disclosure
The AI Girlfriends Industry Index was formalized in 2026. This edition reports observations for November 2025 computed retrospectively from the platform's historical first-party data using the methodology described below. All observations use the same metric definitions and sample construction as live editions.
- Coverage period: November 2025
- Sample: First-party session and account records, AIGirlfriends.AI platform, anonymised and aggregated
- Data sources: Session logs, subscription records, interaction metadata (text, voice, image)
- Methodology last revised: 2026-05-01
- Press contact: [email protected]
Market Size and Adoption, November 2025
The AI Girlfriends Industry Index recorded 23.8 million monthly active users in November 2025, up +5.3% from 22.6 million. New registrations were 1,280,000 for the month.
Geographic distribution: North America ~38%, Europe ~27%, Asia-Pacific ~24%, other regions ~11%. Asia-Pacific continued to show the fastest absolute new-user growth. The AIGirlfriends.AI platform contributed approximately 12–14% of category-wide MAU, consistent with prior months.
Engagement and Retention, November 2025
The Companion Engagement Index registered 65.4 in November 2025, up +0.6 from 64.8. The daily active rate was 51%.
Average Daily Conversation Length was 22.9 minutes in November 2025.
Voice Adoption Rate was 39% of paid subscribers. Voice sessions continued to run approximately twice as long as text-only sessions.
The 30-Day Retention Rate for November new users was 36%. Memory-enabled users continued to show substantially higher R30 than users without memory.
Revenue, ARPU, and Willingness to Pay
Conversion-to-Paid Rate in November 2025 was 14.7%, with ARPU at $19.90 per paying user per month, per the AI Girlfriends Industry Index.
Paying users continued to show substantially higher engagement than free-tier users, with paying-user CEI approximately 12–18 points above the free-tier figure. The revenue mix remained weighted toward subscriptions (~72%) with coin purchases (~21%) and one-time unlocks (~7%).
Product Trends, November 2025
Voice Adoption Rate reached 39% of paid subscribers in November 2025. R30 was 36%. ADCL was 22.9 minutes. Persona customization adoption reached 48% of paying subscribers. The product metrics continued their established trajectories. The defining topic of November 2025 was not product performance but the regulatory environment surrounding it.
The Regulatory Map Before 2026
The November 2025 edition maps the regulatory and platform-policy landscape as it stood entering 2026. The purpose is to establish a documented baseline against which future editions, particularly May and June 2026, will measure change.
Government regulation: limited but accelerating. Seven jurisdictions introduced or proposed AI companion-relevant rules during 2024–2025. The most significant were: the EU AI Act's high-risk classification provisions (which may apply to AI companions under the "emotional manipulation" definition); age-verification requirements proposed in two US states; transparency labeling requirements in two European member states; and a content classification framework proposed in one Asia-Pacific jurisdiction. As of November 2025, none of these had passed as binding AI-companion-specific legislation. All remained proposals or preliminary guidance.
Platform policy: faster and more binding. Apple's App Store and Google Play content policies imposed the most immediate constraints on SFW AI companion platforms. Both stores had updated their developer guidelines in 2024 to require age-gating for AI companion apps rated 17+/M, more explicit consent flows for AI persona interactions, and compliance with their respective AI disclosure requirements. These policy updates were implemented in months, not years, faster than any legislative process.
Payment processor policy: the constraint for adult-content platforms. For adult-content AI companion platforms distributing via web, payment processor policies (Stripe, PayPal, and card network rules) represented the primary distribution constraint. Processor policy changes in 2024 required additional age-verification documentation for adult-content AI platforms, increasing compliance costs and reducing conversion rates for new subscribers.
The 2026 risk map. Going into 2026, the binding constraint for the category is distribution policy, not legislation. App-store and processor rules can change with 30 days' notice. Legislation takes years. Platforms optimized for regulatory compliance over app-store and processor compliance are solving the slower problem. This edition establishes the pre-2026 baseline that subsequent editions will update.
Demographics and Geography
Demographic composition remained consistent with the March 2025 baseline: users aged 18–24 at ~31%, 25–34 at ~34%, 35 and older at ~35%. Geographic split: North America 38%, Europe 27%, Asia-Pacific 24%, other 11%. The Asia-Pacific share of new registrations continued trending upward in absolute terms.
The Month’s Defining Shift
The November 2025 regulatory map supports one central finding: going into 2026, the constraint that can move fastest and hit hardest for AI companion platforms is not government regulation but platform policy. Apple can change its App Store guidelines in a quarterly update. Google can do the same. A payment processor can terminate a merchant account with 30 days' notice. The legislative process in the most active jurisdictions is measured in years, not months. Platforms that have treated app-store and processor compliance as their primary risk management layer are better positioned for 2026 than those focused on regulatory lobbying.
What We Are Watching in December 2025
- Full-year 2025 trendlines: the December edition is the annual flagship, covering all 12 months of 2025 data across every metric in the glossary.
- Regulatory acceleration: whether any of the 7 jurisdictions with AI companion-relevant proposals in 2025 passed binding rules before year-end.
- App-store policy updates: whether Apple or Google updated their developer policies in Q4 2025 in response to growing AI companion app volumes.
Full Methodology, Glossary, and Metric Definitions
Data collection and processing
All first-party data is drawn from anonymised, aggregated records on the AIGirlfriends.AI platform. No session content is retained or analyzed. This is a retrospective edition computed in May 2026 from historical data using consistent methodology.
Full definitions for all proprietary metrics are in the series glossary.
How to Cite This Report
APA 7: Taylor, J. (2026, May). AI girlfriend industry report, November 2025. AIGirlfriends.AI. https://aigirlfriends.ai/blog/ai-girlfriend-industry-report-november-2025
Journalist copy-paste: …according to the AI Girlfriends Industry Index (November 2025 edition, AIGirlfriends.AI).
Series hub: aigirlfriends.ai/blog/ai-girlfriend-industry-report
About the Authors
Author: Jack Taylor, Ph.D., Head of Research, AI Girlfriends Industry Index.
Reviewed by: Jonathan Brenner, Lead Research Editor, AIGirlfriends.AI.
Press: [email protected]
Disclosure: AIGirlfriends.AI operates a consumer AI companion product. First-party data is drawn from that platform, anonymised and aggregated. This disclosure appears in every edition.