How should I choose an AI companion app?
By seven criteria: long-term memory, language quality and register, proactive outreach, who authors the persona, training-data policy, deletion rights, and age and content policy. All seven can be checked yourself from a store listing, a privacy policy and a few days on a free tier.
Ranked lists of "best AI companion apps" go stale within months, and most are written by people who did not use the products. A checklist you can run yourself keeps working. That is what this page is.
Character.AI, Replika, Talkie and Nomi are the names you will meet most often in this category. We are deliberately not asserting what each of them does today — features and policies change, and a comparison built on stale claims is worse than none. Run the criteria yourself instead.
Criterion 1 — Does it remember past conversations?
Mention something small in passing, then see days later whether the app raises it without prompting. If you have to say "I told you before", that is search, not memory. Also look for whether the listing claims recall across sessions or merely saved history.
This is the criterion that most determines whether an app is still installed in three months. Without it, every conversation restarts from zero. Detail is in AI with long-term memory. Beff: episodes, facts and emotions accumulate and are recalled; relationships progress through five intimacy tiers.
Criterion 2 — Does the language sound natural?
Read the screenshots before installing. Translated phrasing is visible instantly. If the app claims a language other than English, check whether it handles that language's register system rather than producing uniformly polite output.
Tone is what carries relationship. In Korean it is grammatically explicit, which is why English-first apps localised by translation tend to read stiff. See Korean AI friend. Beff: built Korean-first, with casual and polite registers and Korean-English code-switching inside one message.
Criterion 3 — Does it ever message you first?
Look for "push notification" in the description, and whether outreach is described as situational or scheduled. A daily greeting at a fixed hour is a scheduler; mentions of weather, movement or your plans suggest real signals.
An app that only responds is a tool you open, not a relationship. See AI that texts you first. Beff: twelve signals across time, movement, weather and remembered context, delivered by push with the app closed.
Criterion 4 — Who authors the persona?
Does the app open onto a gallery of characters other users made, or onto a creation screen? Both models are valid — they suit different things. Browsing is better for variety; authoring is better for a companion that fits you specifically.
Beff: you author it — BIG5 personality traits, appearance, occupation and speech style, all of which show up in how the persona actually talks. The usage guide walks through it.
Criterion 5 — Are your conversations used to train the model?
Open the privacy policy and search for "training". You want an explicit sentence saying conversations are not used for model training. If the wording is ambiguous or absent, assume they are.
This is the criterion people skip and later care about most, because companion conversations are unusually personal. Beff: enterprise AI models that guarantee no training on customer data; conversations and images are never used for training.
Criterion 6 — Can you delete everything?
Look for whether deletion happens inside the app instantly or requires emailing support, and whether the policy states when backups are purged. "Contact us to request deletion" is a meaningfully weaker guarantee than a button.
Deletion rights and memory should always be assessed together — the more an app remembers, the more this matters. Beff: one tap removes all personas, conversations, memories and images immediately; backups purged within 30 days. See account deletion.
Criterion 7 — Is the age and content policy clear?
Check the store age rating first — it is the fastest signal. Then read the content policy rather than the landing page, and look at what user reviews say people use it for.
A large share of the AI companion market is adult-oriented, and it is not always obvious from the marketing. Beff: rated 14 and over, and not an adult companion app.
Key points
- Ranked "best app" lists go stale. A checklist you run yourself does not.
- Memory is the criterion that most predicts whether you still use an app in three months.
- Read the privacy policy for the training-data sentence — vague wording means assume the worst.
- Assess memory and deletion rights together, never separately.
- Check the age rating first; much of this category is adult-oriented.
The checklist in one table
Run these seven rows against any app in the category. The middle column is what to do; the right column is where Beff stands so you have a reference point.
| Criterion | How to check it | Beff |
|---|---|---|
| Long-term memory | Mention something small; see if it resurfaces days later | Episodes, facts, emotions; five intimacy tiers |
| Language and register | Read screenshots for translated phrasing | Korean-first, casual/polite, code-switching |
| Proactive outreach | Look for push, and situational vs scheduled | 12 signals, works with app closed |
| Persona authorship | Gallery of others' characters, or a creation screen | You design BIG5, appearance, job, speech |
| Training policy | Search the privacy policy for "training" | Never used for model training |
| Deletion | In-app button vs email request; backup purge window | Instant in-app; backups purged in 30 days |
| Age and content | Store age rating, then the content policy | 14+, not an adult companion app |
Beff is deliberately narrow: a Korean-first companion that remembers and reaches out. If you want a large library of community-made characters, or an adult-oriented product, other apps in the category fit better and it is worth saying so.
Run the checklist on Beff yourself
Free to start · Age 14+ · Conversations are never used to train AI models
Frequently asked questions
Which AI companion app is best?
There is no single answer, because the apps optimise for different things — some for a large library of community characters, some for adult roleplay, some for a companion you design yourself. Run the seven criteria on this page against your own priorities instead of trusting a ranked list.
Are there free AI companion apps?
Most offer a free tier limited by daily messages or number of characters. Beff is free to start with one persona and five messages a day. Use the free period to judge tone rather than feature count.
Which AI companion apps remember your conversations?
Rather than trusting the claim, test it: mention something small in passing and see whether the app raises it unprompted days later. If you always have to remind it first, it is closer to search than memory.
Are there AI companion apps that are not adult-oriented?
Yes, but a large share of the category is, so check the store age rating first and then read the content policy rather than the landing page. Beff is rated 14 and over and is not an adult companion app.
Can I move my chat history between AI companion apps?
Generally no. Memory formats are proprietary and there is no export standard, so switching apps usually means starting over. That is worth weighing before you invest months in one.
Which AI companion apps are good for Korean?
Look for one built in Korean rather than translated, and specifically for whether it handles casual and polite registers rather than producing uniformly formal output. Beff is Korean-first; see the Korean AI friend page for detail.