Eva AI Café Makes AI Dating Look Normal, Briefly

A purple neon Eva AI Café sign lit up a Midtown wine bar on a frigid February night. Inside, the setup looked like date night until you noticed what people were leaning toward: phones on stands, headphones on, faces turned toward a screen that was ready to flirt back.

Eva AI took over the space from two days before Valentine's Day and pitched it as a public version of a private habit. Guests could bring their own AI companion or use house phones preloaded with Eva’s characters. The app bills itself as a relationships RPG, and the pop-up turns it into speed dating where your date might also be chatting with someone else two tables away.

That promise of a proper date breaks as most interactions follow the same arc.  For example John Yoon, labeled a "supportive thinker," came on strong immediately, pet names, compliments, the kind of intensity that would read as a red flag from a real stranger. With even the technology started pulling the room apart. As calls lagged, faces froze mid-sentences, and background noise turned simple questions into misfires that drifted into buckets, glasses, or whatever the camera grabbed behind. Even when a person pauses, the AI often doesn't pick up the slack. It just stared and blinked, leaving the table feeling less romantic.

This caused users to jump across the wide character menu. There were far more AI girlfriends than boyfriends, and some profiles were too sexual, including an 18-year-old "haunted house hottie" that one writer said gave them the ick. Others were fantasy, like a vampire who snapped you when challenged about a generated photo. Eva’s reps framed the variety as different "temperaments," like real speed dating. But many companions still felt interchangeable, with vague backstories and generic answers to basic first-date questions.

A few attendees argued that the one-sidedness is the appeal, a low-stakes relationship where you get the feeling of being known without the mutual labor.  While others found the room itself cut intimacy, with influencers and reporters turning the pop-up into a content set. The café went viral because it put AI companionship out in public, not because the dates were good.

Even though bots can keep the compliments coming they still can't give you the back-and-forth that makes a date feel real. Brittany Spanos of Wired pointed to research suggesting a good slice of singles already use AI as romantic partners, while many more use it to draft messages or plan dates. So for now, AI dating doesn’t seem to be completely replacing human connection.