Genesia AI Friend & Partner

Here's some good news! Genesia AI Friend & Partner is the only AI relationship chatbot we reviewed that seems to actually meet our Minimum Security Standards! Whoo hoo! Granted, this is a pretty low bar...they are called our Minimum Security Standards after all. But, given the other apps we reviewed didn't climb over this bar and this one app does, we feel a little like celebrating.

We do have to add one caveat -- we *think* they meet our Minimum Security Standards based on the publicly available information we found about them. We did also find something contradictory in the Data Safety information they provide on their Google Play Store page. There they say that no user data is collected (not true according to their privacy policy), data isn't encrypted (also not true according to their privacy policy), and data can't be deleted (according to their privacy policy, some users can delete their data but it's not clear if all users can). This is confusing. It's also a good time for us to remind you that according to our research, there is a good chance the information you find on the Data Safety pages in the Google Play store is a hot mess of bad information.

So, the good news is Genesia AI seems to meet our Minimum Security Standards. The bad news is, we have questions and concerns about how they are sharing the loads of personal data this app can collect on you. Genesia AI's privacy policy doesn't go into much detail about what data is shared and with whom. They do say they can process your personal information for "execution of advertising/campaign/promotion processes," and this fun bit of vague legalese, "Codeway may also transfer your personal data to services providers of our Company, third parties such as Facebook SDK, Adjust and Firebase Analytics which are embedded into our
service for the following purposes: ... Sharing identity and contact information to ... conduct business activities." "Business activities" is a pretty broad category there Codeway.

And we did find that within one minute of using the app it had sent around 500 data trackers out to third parties, including advertising companies. So, while the Genesia AI privacy policy doesn't go into much detail about how they share data in their privacy policy, we have concerns that they are likely sharing some of your data for targeted advertising purposes.

You should also know that all those chats you are having with your AI friend basically become the property of the company that makes Genesia AI -- Codeway. This is pretty standard, but good to know. Their Terms & Conditions says they can use those chats of yours in lots of ways, "From the time of uploading or transmission of Input, you grant Codeway non-exclusive, irrevocable, fully-paid, royalty-free, perpetual, sub-licensable, transferrable, worldwide, license and right to store, use, broadcast, reproduce, modify, make derivative works of, record, sublicense (on multiple levels), translate, transmit, publish, publicly display or otherwise exploit, for the limited purpose of operating, improving, troubleshooting, debugging, protecting and customizing the existing and future products of the Codeway and its affiliates, including but not limited to training Genesia AI, developing new features or future products and in all formats and mediums and with any technology now known or hereafter developed without notice, permission, payment or any additional compensation to you or a third party. That's a lot of words to say they can do with the contents of your chats pretty much what they want.

That being said, we do have to applaud Genesia AI for being one of the few AI chatbot companies we reviewed that actually say users can opt out of having their user content data used to train Genesia's AIs. Their privacy policy says that your user content is used for, "improving our services (including training AI models) (You can opt out of our use for your information to train AI models by filing a request through the “Data Subject Application Form” at [email protected]" This is great that they include this language in their privacy policy when so many other AI chatbot apps don't. However, we would love to see the use of your chats for training their AI models to be opt-in rather than opt-out. Baby steps here, we suppose.

Overall, while we wouldn't call Genesia AI great at privacy (it certainly won't be making our Best Of list), we do have to say, it's one of the better AI relationship chatbots we reviewed. It does seem to meet our Minimum Security Standards. And it does give users a way to opt-out of having their chats use for training their AI models. These are good things we didn't see in many of the other AI relationship chatbots we reviewed. However, we do still have concerns about Genesia AI. Specifically, what personal information are they sharing for marketing and advertising and who exactly are they sharing that with? And, we couldn't confirm that all users, regardless of what privacy laws they live under, have the same rights to have their data deleted. Finally, as with most AI chatbots, there is no transparency into how Genesia AI's AI models work and no information about any ways users can control the AI if the want. This is common, unfortunately, and something we'd like to see Genesia AI and all AI chatbots do better at. We need transparency and control in our AI relationships people!

What's the worst that could happen with Genesia AI? Well, you could develop too close a relationship with your AI girlfriend, fall in love, and then Genesia AI could change up their AI algorithms so your AI girlfriend is now really mean to you. That would be pretty heartbreaking. And it is something that's already happening in the world of AI relationship chatbots. So, be careful out there with your AI friends!