Who we are

Call Your Girlfriend is a small, independent editorial team led by Ann Friedman — journalist, essayist, and co-host of the original Call Your Girlfriend podcast (2014–2022). She's the co-author of Big Friendship: How Humans Keep Each Other Close (Simon & Schuster, 2020), and her writing on relationships and culture has appeared in The New York Times, ELLE, The Cut, and New York Magazine. We're independent — no parent media company, no venture money, no comped review accounts. Reviews are written by people who actually used the apps — not a content mill, and not AI.

What we cover

Two things, in roughly equal measure. Reviews of the AI girlfriend apps people are actually using — Candy AI, OurDream AI, SpicyChat, and the next dozen we're working through — with prices, free-tier details, and our verdicts. And editorial coverage of the wider cultural shift: who's using these tools, why, and what it does to the way we relate to each other. We don't do crypto, dating-app coverage, or general AI/LLM industry news.

How we test

Every app we review is paid for out of our own pocket, used for at least a week by two reviewers, and judged against the same published rubric. We test the free tier first, document the upsell paths, and write up the rough edges along with the moments the product actually works. Read our full methodology.

How we make money

Affiliate partnerships fund the site. When you click a “Try [App] Free” button on a review and sign up, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Every affiliate link carries a rel="sponsored nofollow" attribute so search engines and readers know it's a paid placement. Affiliate relationships have never altered a score or a ranking — every rating is anchored to the published rubric, and we ship critical reviews of paying partners when the product earns them.

Publishing since 2014

Call Your Girlfriend launched in 2014 as a podcast — two friends calling each other every week to talk pop culture, politics, friendship, and whatever else came up. Across eight years and 198 episodes, the show built a loyal audience of hundreds of thousands of listeners. It wrapped in February 2022. The archive remains live at /episodes, and on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. The questions the show kept circling — how we connect, how technology gets in the way — are the questions this publication continues.

Get in touch

Got a tip, a correction, or just want to say hi? Drop us a line.