C. Romance/Getty ImagesAI chatbots are redefining infidelity as prenups expand to include AI relationships.Hello Prenups reports rising interest in AI infidelity clauses amid AI companion app growth.Enforcing AI cheating clauses is complex, with challenges around definition and legal proof.Does it count as cheating when the paramour is a chatbot?Cheating on your spouse may not require another person. That's according to some definitions of infidelity that are beginning to appear in prenuptial agreements.Julia Rodgers, founder and CEO of Hello Prenups, told Business Insider some clients are requesting prenups that expand affairs to include encounters with AI. While she couldn't share specific customer clauses, she shared an example that reflects what's been used in real client agreements:"knowingly and intentionally engaging with an artificial intelligence ("AI") chatbot, virtual companion, avatar, or similar AI-powered system for the primary purpose of establishing or maintaining a romantic or sexual relationship, including but not limited to exchanging sexually explicit messages or images, engaging in sexual roleplay or cybersex, expressing romantic love or exclusivity, or maintaining an ongoing intimate relationship that a reasonable person would consider romantic or sexual in nature."With the loneliness epidemic and the explosive growth of AI companion apps like Replika and EVA AI, people are increasingly turning to chatbots for their emotional, romantic, and sexual needs — including some who are already in intimate relationships with other humans.Lawyers who work on prenups told Business Insider they are beginning to field questions about how AI relationships could be addressed in those agreements. Most had not personally drafted an AI-infidelity provision, though several said the issue was a natural extension of a broader trend of couples redefining cheating beyond sex with another person.While the legal questions remain, one thing's for certain: AI is giving couples one more boundary to define before they say "I do."Redefining 'infidelity' to include AIHelloPrenup handles tens of thousands of prenups a year, a third of which include infidelity clauses, the company says. Rodgers said that while AI infidelity is already being included in prenups, how they will be enforced in court remains to be seen."Physical infidelity is comparatively really easy to define. Emotional virtual infidelity with a chatbot is not," Rodgers said.A study conducted by Indiana University's Kinsey Institute last year found 61% single adults surveyed said sexting or falling in love with an AI chatbot counted as cheating.AI companion apps like Replika AI are growing.OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty ImagesLisa Zeiderman, a family attorney in New York, said the issue is already coming up in her work with clients seeking divorce who complain their spouse was spending more time with an AI companion than with them or their children.Previously primarily about the handling of assets, couples are increasingly using prenups to set out their expectations for the marriage, according to Aaron Thomas, attorney and founder of Prenups.com, who said, "Couples are treating prenups like partnership agreements. If you're going into business with a partner, you lay out all the terms."Infidelity clauses can be challenging to enforce even without the added question of a non-human lover, but some lawyers said they're seeing increased interest in them, with couples also expanding the definition of what might count as cheating.An appeals court in Kentucky last month upheld a prenup and postnuptial agreement that defined cheating as, among other things, "any type of contact with any female" outside work, including phone calls, texts, emails, and interactions while playing video games."Increasingly, couples are defining emotional affairs to the best that they can as falling under infidelity," Thomas said, adding that human-AI relationships would be a logical continuation of that.He thinks AI-infidelity clauses are likely to start appearing more in postnup agreements first, which commonly address issues that have already threatened the marriage.Enforcing AI infidelity clauses could be a challengeElizabeth Yang, an attorney in California, said clients have asked her firm to include AI-infidelity clauses in prenups. The firm has discouraged them because of concerns about enforceability and the potential for future litigation.Including AI infidelity in a prenup would require very careful wording, the lawyers said. Thomas said a workable provision would need three components: a definition of the prohibited behavior, a method for determining whether a breach occurred, and a stated financial consequence. As he put it, "a behavioral guardrail with a financial backstop."Possible definitions could include spending more than a set dollar amount on an AI companion or exceeding a specified number of hours talking with a chatbot. The agreement would also need to say how a
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