NEW YORK: As Valentine’s Day approaches, a wine bar in New York City has offered an unconventional seating option: a place at the table for artificial intelligence.
At Same Same Wine Bar, diners are invited to bring their AI chatbots along for what organisers describe as “AI-assisted dinners”. Phones and tablets are placed opposite wine glasses, allowing guests to converse with virtual companions while eating and drinking.
The initiative is backed by EvaAI, a service that offers AI-generated characters for text and video interaction. Users can choose from pre-built avatars or customise digital partners, shaping personalities, appearance and conversational style.
On the opening night, patrons largely dined alone, their attention fixed on animated faces flickering on screens. The audience included technology enthusiasts, media observers and long-time users of AI companion apps, suggesting curiosity rather than novelty-seeking alone.
EvaAI positions its products as tools for the single, the curious or those seeking to practise communication skills. Yet the timing is telling. Surveys and online forums point to growing interest in AI companionship, particularly among younger adults navigating loneliness, dating fatigue and digital-first lives.
As AI seeps from screens into social spaces, experiments like this one suggest that artificial relationships are no longer confined to private chats. They are edging, cautiously, into the public square.
