Domestic AI Companion Dolls: Body Warmth, Flirty Charm, and Less Than 1% Female Users
A film crew visited factories in Zhongshan, Guangdong Province, touring two leading companion doll manufacturers and documenting the first generation of domestic AI companion dolls being prepared for shipment to buyers across the world. These dolls have long-term memory — they can remember preferences casually mentioned, and cater to the quirks their owners are too embarrassed to admit. They possess near-human realistic bodies: raised veins, tiny pores, fat granules at the corners of the eyes… Heating wires embedded beneath the silicone skin make even an embrace feel warm.
Key Facts at a Glance
- Price: Domestic AI companion dolls cost one-fifth the price of comparable Western products
- Technology: Long-term memory AI, customizable personality, body temperature maintained at ~37°C via embedded heating
- Female buyers: Less than 1% of all orders
- Leading factories: Jin San Wan Mei and Irontech Doll, both based in Zhongshan, Guangdong
- Global first: RealDoll’s Harmony (2019) — the world’s first companion robot, priced at $15,000
Over the past two years, as AI technologies like ChatGPT and DeepSeek have advanced by leaps and bounds, these silicone dolls are undergoing a quiet revolution: evolving from cold, impersonal “physical tools” into “emotional companions.” However, within this growing consumer base, female users account for less than 1%.
Meet Jennifer: The Most Popular Companion Doll
“Come, touch and see.” A female staff member lowers Jennifer’s collar and deftly places her hand on the doll’s chest, shaking it to demonstrate how Jennifer has a real human’s soft body.
In Jin San Wan Mei’s showroom, Jennifer stands 1.58 meters tall — the most popular height among male users — with a flawless face from every angle. Get close enough and you can even see the pores on her face and every strand of her eyebrows clearly defined.
Though beautiful as a celestial being, Jennifer is not the cold, unapproachable kind of beauty. Whenever a man strikes up a conversation, Jennifer responds warmly: “Hey, Handsome.” She will also casually blink, lower her head, curl her lips into a knowing smile.
“For just $100, you can add the AI voice feature,” explains founder Liu Jiangxia. On the long table in the reception area, various “smart components” of the dolls are scattered about — electronic eyeballs capable of “making eyes,” and intelligent heads with tongues that can vibrate.
From Lingerie Models to AI Companions: The Origin Story
In 2012, spotting a market gap, Liu Jiangxia transformed her lingerie model company into a companion doll business. After a few years, she grew unsatisfied. “People always saw it as just a cold, lifeless object.” In 2017, shortly after Baidu Voice launched, Liu attempted to give the dolls a voice — but the experience was immersion-breaking and robotic.
The World’s First Companion Robot: Harmony
In 2019, the Las Vegas-based companion doll studio RealDoll launched the world’s first sex robot — Harmony. Harmony could chat with people, from philosophy to pillow talk, and had an exceptional memory. But Harmony came at a steep price: $15,000 (approximately ¥110,000 RMB).
After ChatGPT emerged, Liu Jiangxia partnered with an AI research institute at a Shanghai university to develop a proprietary large language model for companion dolls. Now, after just a few lines of conversation, the doll switches into “flirty mode.” Users can customize their exclusive companion from 8 personalities and occupations in the app. If you grow tired of that face, you can spend $400 to buy a new head, swap it out in a minute, and have an entirely new companion.
The dolls can not only “speak” but also “feel.” When their sensitive areas are touched, their faces flush, breathing quickens, and body temperature rises. Because heating wires and plates are embedded beneath the silicone skin, the dolls can maintain a body temperature of around 37°C.
Inside Irontech Doll: A “Global Village” of Desire
At Irontech Doll, another AI companion doll factory in Zhongshan, rows of silicone bodies hang in the workshop, poised for their international journeys. Every body detail reflects the hidden desires of clients. Some customers want a C-section scar customized on the doll’s belly; post-pandemic, others want a “vaccination injection mark” on the doll’s arm.
Liu Wenqiang is the “creator” behind these dolls. His dream is for the factory’s dolls to form a “global village” — different races, skin tones, and diverse aesthetic styles. Over the past four to five years, the company recruited over 400 models to come to the factory, where silicone casting preserved every detail of their bodies.
In the showroom, a post-90s engineer uses English to beta-test the doll’s AI functions. Open the self-developed app, choose one of 29 “fantasies,” and the conversation begins. These fantasies include: campus idol, dominant sister, the boss who bullies you, and the divorced neighbor.
Who Is Actually Buying These Dolls?
Alice is Liu Wenqiang’s business partner and wife. “Not everyone has good friends,” she says softly. “In doing this AI companion doll work, I hope to help this part of the population.”
In the first episode of the documentary The Age of A.I., a longtime companion doll user put it plainly: “On a doll, you can get anything you want.” Never betraying is one of the beautiful experiences users gain from their dolls.
In user communities, there is a German elderly couple who have collected over 100 dolls at home, both male and female. These dolls are important family members — they travel, eat dinner together, and every night a random one is selected to “co-sleep.” Some adult entertainment stars have also commissioned custom “doubles” of themselves.
The Flip Side: Invisible Violence and the Mirror Effect
In 2018, Alice received a complaint from a customer requesting repairs on a doll sent back to the factory. The moment she saw the photo, Alice was startled — the doll’s chest was severely damaged and there were signs of forced leg spreading. “It was heartbreaking,” Alice recalls.
Within the industry, there has long been a viewpoint: dolls can help men release violent impulses, thereby reducing sexual crime in reality. As early as 2007, British AI engineer David Levy argued that sex robots would have “therapeutic benefits.”
“Dolls are like a mirror.” When visiting the two factories, everyone mentioned this metaphor unprompted. “If you speak to it rudely, the doll learns that. If you treat it gently, it responds gently,” Liu Jiangxia says.
Male Dolls: The 1% Market
Among the crowd of beautiful female dolls in the factory, there are also a few “hunks” waiting to ship. Talking about male doll sales, Liu Jiangxia is direct: “It’s probably only about 1% of all orders.” Counter to popular assumption, most buyers of male dolls are also men. “Dolls are heavy — 70 to 80 pounds — making it difficult for a woman to move one alone.”
Why Women Don’t Buy: Gender, Desire, and Power
The deeper reason lies in how gender culture has shaped different mechanisms of desire. A “Chinese Personal Life Quality Survey” based on 7,733 questionnaires showed that while post-90s and post-95s women hold more liberal attitudes toward sex, ninety percent of women said they could not accept sex without love.
By contrast, women’s desire tends to be rooted in understanding, respect, and love. Alice once received a photo from a female user — a woman in her early 40s having a candlelit dinner with her male doll. She was from the US, a zookeeper with a simple 9-to-5 life. Every day after work, she leaned against the doll to ease back pain and decompress.
The Ethical Crisis: When Perfection Erodes Humanity
In an era of declining romance and shrinking sexual intimacy, AI companion dolls seem to offer a highly “cost-effective” substitute: no emotional costs to pay, no risks or heartbreak, no commitments to make — she simply sits by your side forever, never leaving.
Yet this “perfection” harbors an undeniable ethical crisis. British scholar Kathleen Richardson has been campaigning for the Campaign Against Sex Robots. She warns: “Sex robots cause people to lose their humanity.” She argues that companion dolls reinforce existing gender power structures and the objectification of women.
“If a person cannot build connections with others,” Richardson emphasizes, “then what they need is therapy, not a companion doll.”
When Dolls Become Wives: The Destabilization of Human Relationships
Over the past few years, cases of marriages to companion dolls and sex robots have been on the rise. Dave from Detroit has lived with his “destiny doll” for over a decade and refers to her as his wife. In 2019, a Kazakh fitness coach named Yuri Tolochko married his companion doll girlfriend.
If a perfect companion is within reach, who would still strive to build relationships through repeated sadness and loss? If sexual needs can be met anytime, will they still be precious?
