Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed.
China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to an ultimate science fiction — sex with robots.
Integrating AI has become more popular in the past two years, according to Hannes Hultman, Europe sales manager for Chinese sex toy firm Svakom (司沃康).
Photo: AFP
“But it’s still very early-stage for a lot of this,” he said on Friday.
Svakom, one of the better-known Chinese brands overseas, is among those venturing further into the field of teledildonics, using networked toys to create virtual sexual encounters.
One of its masturbators can sync with video to replicate the actions on screen — either with preprogrammed content via Svakom’s app, or with an AI plug-in that watches a video on approved sites in real-time and mimics it. The company has also partnered with firms that offer AI chatbot “fantasy partners.”
Photo: AFP
“You can ask the AI to control your toy,” Hultman said. “You create your own girlfriend and actually interact, and now you can basically touch your body through the toy.”
Sistalk Technology, a Beijing-based company that made phone software before pivoting to the adult industry, also has a feature on its app that allows an AI “girlfriend” to control a toy.
A salesperson said that demand from China’s younger generation, with more disposable income and higher standards, was changing the market.
“Although we make sex toys, we’re trying to change the mindset of our community and make [the focus] less pornographic,” he said.
Sistalk’s app can function as a social media platform, with users socializing and sharing their hobbies and likes. They can also choose to virtually hook up and control each other’s sex toys.
“It’s definitely a new trend, in Europe it’s quite developing — many customers ask for it,” said Malgorzata Zasada, from the company Oninder, which is named to sound like the dating app Tinder and imitates the way users swipe to find matches.
“In Asia, in China, it’s not so popular right now, but it’s changing and I think it will be a new hit,” Zasada said.
Meanwhile, realistic sex robots seem a long way off — the few on display moved jerkily, with limited and badly synced speech.
Experts have flagged the many unanswered ethical questions around the growing use of AI for intimacy.
At the moment, in China, the pool of people engaging is still small — Sistalk’s domestic app only has about 500 users, minuscule in terms of China’s population.
The Asia-Pacific region is seen as a key growth market for sex toys though. At the stall of a company named Wet Stuff, representative Ye Pei showed off the Australian company’s Chinese-targeted lubricant flavored with baijiu, a popular local alcohol.
Attitudes toward sex have changed drastically in the past few years, the 40-year-old said.
“When I was 20, when I went to buy condoms at the drugstore I would immediately stick them in my pocket and run off, but now ... the saleswoman might tell me that these condoms are ultra-thin, these ones make you last longer, these ones have raised dots,” he said, laughing.
Another change has been the rise in “women’s power,” said a representative from BeU, a brand that focuses exclusively on toys for women.
“Everyone has become more and more able to accept [adult products], rather than feeling ashamed about it,” she said.
Toys now use tech to incorporate aspects of well-being, as well as pleasure. One vibrator on display at the expo was advertised as being able to predict ovulation by measuring internal temperature, as well as help train pelvic floor muscles. Others are said to recognize when their user is climaxing and remember the pulse patterns that led them there.
The sleek silicone products drew a stark contrast with more traditional stalls, many of which featured walls of life-like, often enormous, plastic genitals that involved no tech at all.
“I think there’s a lot of things changing in the industry,” Hultman said. “The technology aspect, the AI ... it’s growing so fast, it will be very interesting to see where all this goes, but we have big plans.”
With an approval rating of just two percent, Peruvian President Dina Boluarte might be the world’s most unpopular leader, according to pollsters. Protests greeted her rise to power 29 months ago, and have marked her entire term — joined by assorted scandals, investigations, controversies and a surge in gang violence. The 63-year-old is the target of a dozen probes, including for her alleged failure to declare gifts of luxury jewels and watches, a scandal inevitably dubbed “Rolexgate.” She is also under the microscope for a two-week undeclared absence for nose surgery — which she insists was medical, not cosmetic — and is
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
CHIP DUTIES: TSMC said it voiced its concerns to Washington about tariffs, telling the US commerce department that it wants ‘fair treatment’ to protect its competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reiterated robust business prospects for this year as strong artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from Nvidia Corp and other customers would absorb the impacts of US tariffs. “The impact of tariffs would be indirect, as the custom tax is the importers’ responsibility, not the exporters,” TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at the chipmaker’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Hsinchu City. TSMC’s business could be affected if people become reluctant to buy electronics due to inflated prices, Wei said. In addition, the chipmaker has voiced its concern to the US Department of Commerce