I stumbled upon joi.com quite by accident while looking for something interesting to do in the evening. JOI struck me as an unusual platform: you can chat with AI companions, customise their personality, appearance and voice, and receive photos or videos from "virtual characters". I decided to give it a try just for fun and to see what a modern AI-based "chat friend" looks like. After the first chat, I felt that this was definitely not a regular messenger — the whole interaction had an element of play, mood and creativity. This was not what I expected from a regular app, and JOI seemed to me to be something between a game, fantasy and a social experiment.