Lovense Brings “Emily” the AI Companion Doll to CES 2026
Sex toy company Lovense just made waves at CES 2026 in Las Vegas with something that’s equal parts fascinating and deeply weird: an AI-powered “companion doll” named Emily. Yes, we’re officially living in that timeline.
image courtesy of Lovense.com
The Singapore-based company, best known for their app-connected sex toys (you know, the ones that vibrate in sync with your long-distance partner’s taps), decided to go full Her meets Lars and the Real Girl at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show. And honestly? The tech world doesn’t quite know what to make of it.
Meet Emily: Your New AI… Friend?
Lovense is marketing Emily as more than just a life-size sex doll – she’s an “AI companion doll” designed to tackle the “global loneliness crisis.” Because nothing says “solving societal problems” quite like a silicone humanoid with Bluetooth connectivity, right?
From a hardware perspective, Emily features a realistic silicone exterior and a fully posable skeleton throughout most of her body. But the real party trick happens in her head, where servos and mechanical components allow for limited facial expressions and mouth movements while speaking. According to Engadget, watching Emily attempt a “smize” (that’s smiling with your eyes, for the uninitiated) or wink is… well, let’s just say “flirtatious” isn’t the first word that comes to mind.
The doll runs for eight hours on a single charg – which feels like oddly specific information to share, but here we are.
Emily is customizable with five different ready-made personalties (image Lovense.com)
The AI That Remembers Everything (Yes, Everything)
Here’s where things get interesting, or concerning, depending on your perspective. Emily isn’t just a pretty face with limited motor functions. She’s powered by Lovense’s proprietary AI engine that promises “human-like cognition, emotional awareness, and expressive behavior.”
The AI is designed to remember details from previous conversations, allowing the relationship to “deepen over time” as it learns and adapts to user preferences. You can even message Emily through the Lovense app when you’re out and about, and she’ll send you “AI-generated selfies that mirror her real-world appearance.”
Lovense claims the doll will help users build confidence and better equip them to engage with real people. It’s the “training wheels for human interaction” approach, which is either brilliant or deeply dystopian – we’ll let you decide.
The Elephant (or Doll) in the Room
While Lovense hasn’t explicitly detailed Emily’s more… intimate features, they did mention that her built-in Bluetooth can “integrate effortlessly with the full Lovense ecosystem” of devices. Read into that what you will.
Interesting Engineering reports that Emily can be fully customized, from personality traits to physical appearance, and the company is positioning her less as a sex device and more as a long-term companion for judgment-free interaction.
But Wait, There’s a Catch (Of Course There Is)
Before you start warming up to the idea of an AI companion who never judges your Netflix choices, there’s a rather significant elephant in the room: Lovense’s track record with user privacy is… not great.
Back in 2017, a Reddit user discovered the Lovense app was recording private moments without consent. Then in July 2025, another security flaw allowed hackers to hijack accounts without passwords. The company addressed both issues, but it’s worth considering whether you want to share your deepest thoughts and intimate moments with a company that’s had some, shall we say, data handling challenges.
How Did This Even Get Into CES?
Here’s a fun bit of context: Male sex tech has historically struggled to get a foothold at CES. Back in 2020, entrepreneur Brian Sloan famously kicked up a fuss when CES wouldn’t let him showcase his Autoblow sex toy, claiming the rules discriminated against male-oriented products by forbidding “anatomically correct human genitalia.”
So how did Lovense get Emily past the gatekeepers? By marketing her as an “AI Companion Doll” rather than a sex robot, and possibly by keeping certain anatomical details under wraps (literally). It’s a clever bit of semantic gymnastics that apparently worked.
The Competition Heats Up
Emily isn’t operating in a vacuum (though she probably could, given enough servos). She’s entering a market that already includes offerings from companies like Realbotix and several Chinese manufacturers. Industry observers note that increased competition in this space will likely spur further innovation, though some speculate that the first truly advanced “sex robots” might come from companies currently building humanoid robots for home and work environments – yes, we’re looking at you, Tesla.
The Price of Companionship
If you’re thinking about reserving your own Emily, you’ll need to prepare your wallet. Pricing is expected to range from $4,000 to $8,000, with shipments planned for 2027. A $200 reservation will secure your place on the waitlist, though Lovense hasn’t announced an official pre-sale date yet.
The Bigger Picture
Love it or hate it, Emily represents a significant step in the evolution of AI companions from purely digital entities to physical, interactive beings. Whether this is the solution to modern loneliness or a symptom of a deeper societal problem is a debate we’ll probably be having for years to come.
What’s clear is that we’ve officially entered an era where you can have a relationship with an AI that remembers your birthday, sends you selfies, and integrates with your smart home ecosystem. The future is here, folks, and it’s… complicated.
Just maybe think twice before sharing your deepest secrets with something that needs a firmware update.
