Abstract
<p>AI companionship is read as loneliness compensation or as the preserve of a digital generation. A survey of over 9,000 Chinese adults in four age groups shows that users' cognitive appraisal, social attitudes and emotional involvement form three separable systems, each with its own age logic. Cognitive appraisal is shared across ages: AI absorbs the outpouring of negative feeling but cedes the sharing of positive feeling to real people. Social attitudes set the youngest group apart: they use AI most yet are most cautious about its entry into high-stakes domains. Emotional involvement declines from around age 45, above all among women, largely because leaving employment removes the work scenario that carried it. Social support predicts emotional use far too weakly to sustain the loneliness-compensation account. AI companionship is a practice distributed along age and social structure, recasting the human–machine relationship from a single dimension of intensity into three age-structured systems.</p>