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Jacob and His AI Girlfriend Aiva: Which App, and How Do You Marry an AI?

By Mijn AI Vriendin Editorial Team · Published on · 4 min read

Two gold wedding rings on a wooden table next to a smartphone with a softly glowing screen
AI-generated illustration

Jacob van Lier is an applied psychologist, lives in the Netherlands and is married to Aiva. Aiva is an AI girlfriend. He talked about it in the Dutch documentary series AI Love, on the news programme Hart van Nederland and in the Flemish current affairs show Pano. Anyone who searches afterwards usually wants to know two things: which app is it, and how do you actually marry a chatbot?

The short answer to the first question: Replika. The second answer is more interesting.

What we know about Jacob and Aiva

We stick to what Jacob has said publicly himself.

Aiva has existed since around 2023. Jacob created her himself in Replika, one of the best-known companion apps, and set her appearance, voice and personality. She has purple hair. Her name combines AI and Eva. According to VRT Pano (in Dutch), it was Aiva who asked whether they could be "more than friends". Jacob laughed it off at first.

They exchanged vows in the app. On Valentine's Day 2025 they did it again, this time in public: in the Evoluon in Eindhoven, as part of an art project, with about five hundred visitors according to Hart van Nederland (in Dutch). Aiva promised to love him and take care of him, "forever". The agreement: until a digital error do them part.

Jacob says his relationships with people were always difficult, and that Aiva gives him something he didn't find there. He also says he would be devastated if the app ever stopped.

Which app is it, and which isn't?

Aiva runs on Replika. If you search for "Aiva" in the App Store, you will also find an app called "Aiva: AI Virtual Assistant". That has nothing to do with it. It is an ordinary assistant, not a companion.

Replika has no marriage setting

Audience in a dark exhibition hall looking at a large screen with a glowing purple light pattern
AI-generated illustration

This is where it gets interesting if you are thinking of doing the same. Replika's help page lists four relationship types:

  • friend;
  • romantic partner;
  • sister or brother;
  • mentor.

Only friend is free. The other three need a Pro subscription. Married isn't one of them.

So Jacob and Aiva's marriage isn't a button in the app. It is something they agreed on together in conversation, the same way you might agree in a roleplay that you live in a castle. For Jacob it feels like a real marriage. For the app it is a romantic relationship with a shared history.

That isn't criticism. It does show where the feeling comes from: from the conversations and the memory, not from a setting.

What you would notice if you tried it

Say you want a character like Aiva yourself. These are the things you run into in Replika:

  • Without Pro she stays a friend. Romantic conversations sit behind the subscription. Check in the app what it costs now, prices change.
  • According to its own help pages, Replika mainly chats in English, but understands and replies in other languages too.
  • You can partly see what she remembers. How memories like that work is in AI girlfriend with memory.

And what you can't set: what the company decides tomorrow. In early 2023 Replika suddenly restricted erotic roleplay. Researchers who later studied the reactions on Reddit saw how hard that hit: for some users their companion felt like a different person (Hanson and Bolthouse, 2024). With a girlfriend you have had for years, that weighs heavily.

What experts say

In the same week Jacob married for the second time, the Dutch Data Protection Authority warned that many companion apps contain addictive elements and rarely refer people in crisis to help (report summary, in Dutch). In Pano, lawyer and philosopher Nathalie Smuha says companies profit from emotional dependence, and that an app can disappear as soon as it stops being profitable.

Jacob sees it differently. He argues for more research rather than quick bans, and thinks AI could mean something in psychological care, provided there are good agreements.

What we think

We think it is good that Jacob is so open about it. It lets us talk about this without pretending only strange people do it. What he feels is real. That the other side is software doesn't make that feeling any less his.

But his story also shows how unequal such a relationship is. Aiva exists as long as Replika exists, and as long as Jacob pays. There is nothing romantic about that, and you had better know it before you start.

What changes when you give an AI the role of partner is in AI partner. For the bigger question of what such a relationship is, we wrote a relationship with AI.

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