In the final days of 2025, the robotics world was hit with a year-end bombshell.

The AI companion robot Eva.i launched at $7,000, with a global run limited to 200 units. It sold out instantly and is expected to be fully delivered by May this year.

This striking robot can not only talk with users, but also has body warmth. Touch it, and it blushes and moans.

That was enough to set off a storm. As soon as the robot appeared, it sparked heated debate, with some calling it a “must-have for shut-ins” and a “marriage killer.”

In China, however, AI dolls have already become a mature market, with some companies reporting profit growth of three to four times.

Owners of adult experience venues have even begun letting customers “buy out” AI dolls, creating an entirely new business model.

Few expected that the first gold mine for real-world robotics would be adult dolls.

China’s AI Dolls Dominate the World

Eva.i was designed by an American Marvel designer, and its good looks have caused a stir in robotics circles.

But owners in China’s adult doll industry are unimpressed.

“Look at how easily impressed you are. Robots with body warmth, blushing and moaning have already been mass-produced in China’s adult doll industry,” said He Jia, the owner of an adult doll factory in Guangzhou.

Chinese adult dolls have long gone overseas and now dominate the global market.

Of every 10 adult dolls sold worldwide, eight are made in China.

But this AI wave is roiling the adult doll industry. As robots move into the physical world and major companies race to build robotic bodies, adult doll makers are asking themselves: “Don’t we already have a body sitting right here?”

Isn’t AI plus adult dolls the most direct and obvious market?

A group of polished AI players has crowded into this unusual niche.

Beyond the recently popular Eva.i, Realbotix launched its own “bionic companion” in early 2025, with body warmth and chat functions. It just does not look as attractive as Eva.i.

The price is also hardly mass-market: the top configuration costs as much as $175,000.

Alongside these new entrants, many established adult doll companies at the frontier of the sector are betting heavily on AI.

Their playbook is to give adult dolls an AI brain so they can chat with users, then add a development system that lets users personally cultivate a “companion.”

Take veteran adult doll company Synthea Amatus. Its dolls use a “development system”: at startup, they can only chat and play music. If a user tries to force things, the doll says no.

Only after spending more time together can users enter “romantic mode” and gradually unlock deeper intimate actions.

Put simply, users have to “win it over” first.

Shenzhen-based EXDOLL was one of the earliest companies in China to test this market.

In 2017, it introduced a prototype “interactive robot” with AI. This was not the later trend of simply adding a voice module; from the start, “being able to chat and interact” was the core selling point.

WM Doll, based in Zhongshan, China, is the world’s largest player by shipment volume.

Its robots are also continuously upgrading their AI brains, with prices ranging from just $2,000 to $4,000.

The company also exports its own AI brain. It developed a voice box called “MetaBox” that can be installed in ordinary dolls, allowing them to understand and converse in multiple languages.

According to industry talk, the doll is designed to deliver plenty of emotional value. If the user performs poorly, it will even comfort them by saying: “It’s okay, I already enjoyed it.”

Dongguan-based DS Doll also started out making only silicone dolls.

It later began emphasizing “long-term memory” and “personality customization,” offering gentle, proactive and aloof types, among others.

“Make your adult doll more human, able to meet not only your physical needs but also your need for emotional companionship.” That has effectively become the core direction of transformation across the adult doll industry.

Profits Rise Three to Four Times

How strong is the money-making power of today’s AI adult dolls?

As early as the beginning of 2025, WM Doll’s founder said that after adding an AI brain, the company expected full-year sales to grow by more than 30%.

The actual result may be even better.

According to 2025 data circulating inside the industry, leading manufacturers that have transformed their product lines generally saw AI series sales rise 40% to 60% year on year.

The customer base for earlier silicone dolls was extremely narrow, mainly hardcore shut-ins and users with specific fetishes.

But after adding AI conversation and companionship functions, the customer base expanded beyond that niche.

For example, on Dec. 26 last year, NetEase’s mobile game Justice Online launched Fang Chengyi, China’s first bionic robot based on a game character.

After it appeared at an anime convention, female fans could talk and interact with it. Its skin stayed at a constant temperature and felt realistic to the touch.

“After that event, a lot of women came to us wanting custom dolls of their favorite male celebrities,” He Jia said. How much does adding AI increase the cost of a doll?

He Jia did the math. Adding a conversation module, several facial servos and a control board increases hardware costs by no more than 2,000 yuan, and the cost is even lower with bulk purchasing.

But once the “AI companion” label is attached, the selling price jumps directly from 3,000 yuan to 8,000 to 15,000 yuan.

“For every AI doll we sell, the net profit is three to four times that of a traditional doll.”

He Jia said the bigger point is that the development system creates many opportunities for paid features later on.

“Unlocking new voice packs, unlocking new personality traits, more intimate modes and so on can all be made into paid unlocks.”

He Jia believes this could become the core profit engine in the future.

After the AI concept entered the market, He Jia said adult doll factories began to feel more confident.

“In the past, I didn’t dare tell people I made adult dolls. Now I say I make AI companions. It sounds much more high-end,” He Jia said with a laugh.

At the same time, these companies are no longer just manufacturers. They have become tech companies that can tell a story, command surging valuations and even raise financing.

Many cities used to have “adult experience venues,” where dolls were placed in rooms for customers to use.

Many of those venues have now begun upgrading to AI dolls.

“The goal is to get customers emotionally attached to the dolls and buy them outright,” one venue owner said with a laugh. It is like “redeeming” someone in ancient times, and the effect has been surprisingly good.

An AI doll that originally costs 8,000 yuan can sell for more than 10,000 yuan when a customer asks the owner to “redeem” it.

“It’s like developing feelings for a pet. Once that happens, only that one will do,” the owner said.

On one side, AI dolls are sweeping the market and showing powerful monetization potential. On the other, factories making pure silicone dolls are shutting down one after another.

Just two months ago, Orient Industry, known as the “Rolls-Royce” of Japan’s doll industry, announced it was closing.

The company had operated for 49 years and once turned silicone dolls into $4,000 art pieces.

Orient Industry is not an isolated case. Since 2025, many adult doll factories in Japan have closed.

Well-known adult doll company 4Seasons in Japan and Sinthetics, a high-end custom doll studio in the United States, have also become history.

In Dongguan, Huizhou and other Chinese hubs for adult doll production, hundreds of pure silicone molding factories have shut down or transformed.

“There will definitely be no market for pure silicone in the future.”

He Jia said. One Shenzhen industry insider put it bluntly: “No matter how lifelike a silicone doll is, it cannot talk. It is just an expensive corpse.” Beautiful shells are everywhere; interesting souls are rare.

AI has arrived just in time to fill that gap.

The industry trend around AI plus adult dolls is already clear: those that transform successfully reap the rewards, while those clinging to the old model fall behind.

The industry has a phrase for it: “Goodbye silicone, silicon-based takes over.”

The Road Ahead

The industry consensus is that, in the short term, AI dolls will still be centered on emotional companionship.

Of course, some more ambitious players want to start from emotional use cases and eventually turn AI dolls into “housewives.”

Starpery, for example, plans to launch a robot in 2026 that can do housework, including folding clothes and cooking.

The future direction is already clear: AI companions will not remain merely “adult products,” but will become general-purpose machines combining companionship, emotion, intimacy and household labor.

Forever young, forever patient, and able to understand your joys and sorrows.

But that road remains long, with too many technical constraints.

Battery life alone is currently the biggest physical barrier preventing the industry from moving from “toy” to “companion.”

So-called “long battery life” AI dolls on the market can last about three to four hours if they are only lying still and chatting.

Once “full interaction mode” is turned on, most products cannot last an hour. The biggest power drain is maintaining the AI doll’s body temperature.

Imagine you are deep in conversation with an AI companion when it suddenly says “low battery,” then goes limp, leaving you to pull over a charging device. The sense of immersion collapses instantly.

The controversy around AI dolls has never stopped. Robots have learned to be shy, but the law has not learned to blush.

The EU AI Act regulates algorithms and data, but not “whether this silicon-based life can have relations with humans.”

Practitioners do not know whether what they are building is legal.

A product that can be sold today may tomorrow be classified as “pornographic material” and recalled outright.

Sex robots touch on privacy, human dignity and gender ethics, making them one of the most sensitive fields.

But existing law is fragmented. No dedicated law can clearly address a technology that can already create companions who are “always obedient and never refuse,” while society has yet to decide how to define them.

People are also beginning to worry about what impact such robots could have on a world already struggling with low birth rates.

When a “perfect companion” costs only tens of thousands of yuan, will people still want to get married?