Abstract
The contribution analyses how Italian adolescents use Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) to manage intimate, sexual/romantic issues and the possible conflicts that arise from them.
Recent studies have highlighted how the pervasiveness of GenAI in everyday life (Han et al., 2025; for Italy, Save the Children, 2025; EU Kids Online, 2026) and the role it plays in adolescents’ lives deserve further investigation, given the affective experimentation and the discovery of intimacy, sexuality and gender identity that characterize this stage of life.
So far, the scientific debate has focused mainly on forms of pseudo-intimacy (Adewale and Muhammad, 2025) or on the affective or sexual relationships that users can experience through GenAI (Zhou and Guan, 2025), also thanks to its anthropomorphic nature (Song et al., 2022; Bennato, 2025). More specifically, research has examined the level of engagement that users develop with these sociotechnical agents in order to replicate romantic interactions or make them more satisfying (Saga et al., 2025), including through the creation of content intended to provide sexual stimulation, either for themselves or for their partner (Willoughby et al., 2025).
Less explored (Sun et al., 2026) is the role that adolescents attribute to GenAI in the construction and management of their intimate lives.
This study aims to fill this knowledge gap by addressing the following research questions:
How does Italian adolescents’ use of GenAI contribute to shaping the construction of intimacy?
What conflicts and trust-related projections emerge when GenAI is used in the management of affective/sexual relationships?
Are there differences in the ways GenAI is used for affective/sexual/relational purposes between heterosexual and LGBTQIA+ adolescents?
Using a qualitative approach, 49 semi-structured interviews were conducted with Italian adolescents aged 16–18 and analysed through qualitative content analysis (Mayring, 2021). The interview guide was developed through a participatory method involving a group of teenagers.
The findings show that adolescents turn to GenAI at any time to seek advice on intimacy or on how to manage inner conflicts arising from various forms of relational uncertainty. GenAI broadens the range of meanings attributed to a partner’s behaviour in specific situations and provides real-time support in relationship management, suggesting how to interpret the other person’s behaviour or how to respond to messages in cases of conflict or break-up.
GenAI appears to be particularly supportive for LGBTQ+ adolescents, who use it to explore their own intimacy. Its portability and the degree of personal confidence it affords make GenAI an intimate and protected space in which to express doubts, fears and insecurities related to sexuality.
Overall, although GenAI compensates for gaps in knowledge about intimacy, it is not used primarily for informational purposes, but rather for the immediate resolution of relational problems that emerge on other platforms, such as WhatsApp. Adolescents express scepticism about the reliability of the answers provided by GenAI on intimate matters, especially because GenAI, unlike search engines such as Google, tends to offer a single answer, leaving little room for agency.
Against the backdrop of a conflictual public and political debate on affective-sexual education, GenAI fills the gap left by traditional agents of socialization and proves more competitive thanks to the affordances that make interaction with it more personal, customizable and continuous.
