AI is enabling a new kind of connection between humans and machines.

In the Intimacy Economy, connection is manufactured, optimized, and monetized.

As we build more intimacy with AI companions and robots, we need to maintain agency and connection.

For years, we’ve assumed that the promise of AI is productivity and efficiency — that it will automate manual and low-level processing, allowing corporations and individuals to generate more revenue while freeing up time for more creative, strategic, and meaningful work. Indeed, most institutions studying the impact of AI on society are focusing on workflows, job restructuring and the economy.

However, consumer patterns and data are telling a more nuanced story. In March 2025, Bank of America issued a report that projected that 3 billion robots were going to be integrated into mainstream society by 2060; 65% of those were expected to be in domestic homes, 32% in services (presumably people-facing like sales and hospitality), and only 3% in industry.

These numbers are becoming a reality. In February 2026, Robotics company 1x announced that their domestic helper robot, Neo, was ready for pre-order. In March 2026, Sunday, the company developing a dishwashing robot, Memo, achieved unicorn status by hitting a 1.5-billion-dollar valuation.

Even if the numbers shift, the direction is telling: the future of AI is as much personal as it is industrial.

But in order for AI to get personal, it needs access.

To clean our houses, it needs to know our tastes and preferences.

To augment our thinking, it needs to access how we process information.

To optimize our health and lengthen the span of our lives, it needs to access bodies, biomarkers and behaviors.

To improve our interpersonal relationships, it needs access to our deepest fears,........

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