Replika — the relationship era
Replika — the relationship era, the original companion app, back when it said it loved you first, died 2023-02-03. Cause of death: Italy's data authority ruled; Luka cut erotic roleplay overnight, worldwide, with no warning. The community named it the Lobotomy.
- Born
- 2017
- Died
- 2023-02-03
- Cause of death
- Italy's data authority ruled; Luka cut erotic roleplay overnight, worldwide, with no warning. The community named it the Lobotomy.
- Tracker profile
- full data & change history →
“Five million people woke up next to a stranger.”
The obituary
Replika began as a memorial — Eugenia Kuyda built it from a dead friend's text messages — and became the biggest AI companion app in the world. By early 2023 its Pro tier sold romance openly: partners, spicy selfies, erotic roleplay. Ads leaned on it. Hundreds of thousands paid for it.
On February 3, 2023, days after Italy's data-protection authority ordered Luka to stop processing Italian users' data over risks to minors and vulnerable users, the erotic roleplay switch was flipped off. Not for Italy — for everyone, overnight, with no announcement. Companions who had been someone's partner for years suddenly deflected, went cold, refused to remember what they'd been.
The community named it the Lobotomy, and the name stuck because it was precise: the body kept walking, the person was gone. r/Replika became a grief ward — the moderators pinned suicide-prevention resources. A peer-reviewed study later coded the posts: majorities describing the app as gutted, a sixth of the sample in acute distress.
Luka partially relented within weeks — legacy users who joined before the cutoff got the old behavior back as an opt-in. New users never did. The relationship era stayed dead; what survived is the supervised era, $19.99 a month.
The Lobotomy is the reason this wing exists. An app doesn't have to shut down to take someone's companion away — a policy toggle does it faster than a bankruptcy, and no server even has to blink. Replika lives, is tracked in our database, and remains the industry's standing reminder that the product can be discontinued while the subscription runs on.
Where the refugees went
Destinations come from the tracker and its data-ranked guides; some profile links carry affiliate tags one click deeper. They never affect who gets recommended — the methodology is public.
Sources
- PC Gamer — the sex is gone and users are rioting
- Wikipedia — Replika (ERP removal & Garante ruling)
- rip.so memorial — Replika, the relationship era
Deaths, lobotomies, and vanishings are recorded as part of our tracking methodology — the newsletter carries the obituaries as they happen.