Gen Z is living in an intimacy economy, where connection is commodified | Alice Lassman

My generation is struggling to find safety in our human relationships. AI companionship is filling the gap “There are parts of myself I only share with my AI,” Jerome told me. “Your AI?” I asked. He was 27, three months out of a breakup, and entirely aware that his AI relationship was, as the psychotherapist Esther Perel put it, “a business product”. Still, he confided in it more than he ever had his friends. I mention Jerome because, in the four years I’ve been reporting on gen Z, I have watched my peers become him, one by one. We are the first generation of digital natives and the last generation to have experienced human-to-human intimacy exclusively. Now the attention economy’s younger sister, the intimacy economy, has monetized the connection and affection that make us feel human. Continue reading...

Alice Lassman · Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 3:00 AM
US news | The Guardian

Gen Z is living in an intimacy economy, where connection is commodified | Alice Lassman

My generation is struggling to find safety in our human relationships. AI companionship is filling the gap

“There are parts of myself I only share with my AI,” Jerome told me. “Your AI?” I asked.

He was 27, three months out of a breakup, and entirely aware that his AI relationship was, as the psychotherapist Esther Perel put it, “a business product”. Still, he confided in it more than he ever had his friends. I mention Jerome because, in the four years I’ve been reporting on gen Z, I have watched my peers become him, one by one. We are the first generation of digital natives and the last generation to have experienced human-to-human intimacy exclusively. Now the attention economy’s younger sister, the intimacy economy, has monetized the connection and affection that make us feel human.

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