Seeking founders, product leads, or engineers building intimacy-focused AI companion apps. This request is not about general AI models like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini, but apps built specifically for relationships. Story focus: – How the adult companion-AI sector has evolved over the past year – Shifts in user behavior and demand – Advances in intimacy or emotional-interaction design – Ethics, consent, and safety frameworks – Market competition and product direction Please reply with your name, role, company, and a brief description of your product. Interviews can be done via Zoom, Meet, or written comments. If submitting a written comment, please be advised that only original comments that have not appeared elsewhere will be considered.

I'm Tony Crisp, Founder at CRISPx where we've launched tech products from Robosen's licensed Transformers robots to defense systems. While I haven't built AI companion apps specifically, I've spent years solving the exact UX challenges these products face: creating emotional connection through digital interfaces. When we designed the Buzz Lightyear robot app for Robosen, we obsessed over intimate details--dynamic backgrounds that changed with time of day, HUD elements that made users feel like they were *inside* the character's world. That's the same design thinking companion AI needs: small details that build emotional resonance over repeated interactions. We learned users don't just want functionality; they want to feel something every time they open the app. The biggest lesson from launching premium tech products: trust is everything, especially when the experience is personal. For Element U.S. Space & Defense, we built different user personas--engineers, quality managers, procurement--each with distinct emotional needs beyond the technical specs. Companion AI faces this same challenge multiplied: you're not just serving different user types, you're serving different emotional states of the *same* user across different moments. From a product positioning perspective, the winners in this space won't be the ones with the best AI model. They'll be the ones who nail the brand trust equation--premium feel, transparent safety frameworks, and design details that respect the vulnerability users bring to these interactions. That's what separates a commodity from something people actually recommend to friends.