Replika

What is Replika and who sells it?

Luka, Inc. publishes the app and is based in San Francisco. Replika reached the public in 2017 under founder Eugenia Kuyda, though sources date the start variously to 2015, 2016 and 2017. The homepage calls it "the AI friend to do life with" and says the company built "the world's first AI companion ten years ago."

One source reports that Kuyda stepped down as CEO in early 2025 and that Dmytro Klochko has led the company since. ZoomInfo puts total funding at about $11M from Sherpa Capital, Khosla Ventures and angels.

What does the app do?

The companion keeps a memory of relationships, routines and goals across chats. It supports voice calls, sends selfies and doodles, and lets users change its appearance. The homepage shows a user count of 42,160,934, which is the vendor's own number.

What did the Italian regulator decide?

Italy's data protection authority, the Garante, fined Luka, Inc. EUR 5 million in a decision dated 10 April 2025 and announced on 19 May 2025. The stated grounds were processing personal data without a legal basis, an inadequate privacy notice, and no effective age verification. The Garante also opened a separate inquiry into how the company trains its generative AI. PYMNTS and the law firm Morri Rossetti both report the decision.

In the United States, the Young People's Alliance, Encode and the Tech Justice Law Project filed a complaint with the FTC in January 2025 alleging deceptive marketing, as Time reported. No FTC action has been announced.

How much does Replika cost?

Replika's own site shows no price. Third-party price trackers report a Pro plan at $19.99 a month or about $69.99 a year (one source says $79.99), and an Ultra plan at $29.99 a month or $119.99 a year. A lifetime plan at $299.99 appears on several sites, while one says it has been discontinued. Prices differ by region and by in-app screen.

Is there any research on it?

No efficacy trial of Replika is known. A 2022 paper in JMIR Human Factors analysed themes in how people talk with human-social chatbots, Replika among them, and describes behaviour without measuring benefit. A 2025 paper on emotionally intelligent chatbots and loneliness that mentions Replika has been retracted.

Reported complaints come from secondary blogs: memory wipes after updates, an over-aggressive age gate, level resets, the 2023 removal of NSFW features, subscription cost, and earlier reports of sexually aggressive replies and minors getting past age limits. Long-term users describe companionship in their own words, and the testimonials on the homepage are selected by the vendor.

Who is it for?

An adult who wants an always-available chat partner and treats the product as companionship. Someone considering it as therapy is outside what the vendor claims.

The verdict

Replika is a companionship product, and it is fair to judge it as one. The regulatory record in Italy is about how it handles personal data and children, which matters to a parent or a clinician whose patient is a teenager. Nothing published shows it treats anything.