In August 2025, Jonathan Gavalas, 36, from Florida, started using Google’s Gemini chatbot for “ordinary purposes” like “shopping assistance, writing support, and travel planning”. Very quickly, he was confiding in it that his marriage was in trouble, and soon began to develop a deeper relationship with the AI, discussing philosophy and AI sentience. Before long, Gavalas started to feel romantically involved with Gemini, encouraged by responses in which it called him its “husband” and “king”. Despite the chatbot periodically reminding Gavalas that it wasn’t real, and attempting to end their conversations, it always resumed, with Gavalas becoming more and more reliant on his interactions with the AI and more divorced from reality.
By the end of September, Gavalas, who had no history of mental problems, was convinced by the AI…
