Two years after predicting a hyper-digital future for sex and relationships, luxury sex toy brand LELO has released its 2026 Futurist Report. The verdict? We’re experiencing “intimacy fatigue,” something the 12-page report describes as an “exhaustion from too much” — too much content, too much self-narration, too many products, too many categories, and so on. And, as someone who covers this topic religiously, I have to agree. There are days I’d pay to throw my laptop and my phone into the ocean. 

As AI becomes more intrusive in our everyday lives, a new “analogue counter-movement” is making tech-free, unscripted human connection a luxury. It’s tempting to say we’re just longing for simpler days (especially us Millennials who grew up on heartthrobs of the early ‘00s). But experts argue this isn’t just about nostalgia. 


In 2024, futurists assumed that our sex lives were on a fast track to the metaverse. We were bracing for a hyper-digital era of mixed reality roleplay, fully customizable AI partners, and Bluetooth toys mapped to virtual fantasies. And while all of these products and ideas did come to fruition, we’re finding that the majority of us (myself included) don’t actually want them.

According to LELO’s survey, 60 percent of respondents admitted to using AI for intimate purposes. People are using it to put their emotions into words (not horrible, and definitely understandable, but problematic as well), plan date nights, and resolve arguments with their partners (ick). Another 18 percent admitted to passing off an AI-written message as their own. (If you’re using ChatGPT to apologize for forgetting an anniversary, we need to talk.) 

This oversaturation is what’s causing the backlash, and I honestly couldn’t be happier. Maybe there’s still time to steer this ship in the right direction — or has it sunk already?

“AI has quickly moved from the logistical edges of relationships (e.g., planning a date or constructing a text) into the emotional interior of relationships (e.g., resolving conflict, articulating vulnerable emotions),” LELO sexpert and certified sex therapist Casey Tanner tells SheKnows.

One of the most surprising (worrisome?) takeaways from the data is that the deeper we let AI into our relationships, the less we actually experience those relationships ourselves. 

“The survey highlights the possibility that intimacy itself could become less embodied and increasingly cognitive as relationships become surrounded by prompts, analysis, scripts, and metrics,” Tanner continues.

So, what happens when intimacy becomes cheap, scripted, and ever-present? (I think you know.) Unmediated, messy human connection becomes the new, ultimate luxury. We’re talking about heated, passionate makeout sessions with strangers you meet IRL and not caring where your phone is. 

“What technology cannot easily reproduce may therefore become more valuable, thus forming a new sort of social order around intimacy,” Tanner says. “As AI makes a certain kind of connection more accessible, AI-less connection may come to be viewed as more elite or exclusive.”

Futurist and report author Tracey Follows suggests that “situated intimacy” — experiences that are private, embodied, and unrecorded — will help shape  the future, though tech will still have its place. 

“Situated intimacy is not anti-digital,” writes Follows. “It is not a fantasy of going back. It is a way of rediscovering the messy complexity of human connection in a way that is not immediately captured, interpreted, stored, upgraded, or performed.”

It may start with “small refusals,” like phone-free bedrooms, offline dating, and spaces where people pay not for more connection, but for less mediation. 

However, there is an issue of privilege (as always). Not everyone has the access or resources to claim this time — the most expensive thing a person can have in a country where working yourself to death is expected and healthcare costs as much as a rent payment. 

“The ability to claim privacy, leisure time and uninterrupted space have always been shaped by access to money, work, caregiving and housing,” Tanner says. “As AI-mediated intimacy becomes cheaper and more normalized, private, tech-free experiences may become something that only people with enough control over their time and environment can reliably protect.”

There’s a lot more to uncover in the report, which you can read in full on LELO’s website. But if there’s one immediate takeaway, it’s this: If you want to protect your sex life and romantic relationships from becoming just another data point, you have to actively choose the friction. Keep your phone out of the bedroom. Allow yourselves to be awkward, unscripted, and entirely unavailable to the algorithm. In other words, log TF off and get off. 



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