Bluetooth Vaginas, AI Personalities and Custom Faces: Inside the $6.6 Billion Sex Doll Market

The global sex doll market was worth US$6.6bn (£5.1bn) in 2025 and is projected to more than double to US$13.4bn (£10.3bn) by 2033, according to a 2026 industry analysis from Grand View Research.

The research firm attributes the market's growth to factors including rising purchasing power, changing attitudes towards sexual-wellness products and their increasing availability. Grand View Research also identifies AI-enabled and smart dolls as the fastest-growing technology segment.

The boom is blurring the line between sex toy and companion. Manufacturers are increasingly adding artificial intelligence, Bluetooth connectivity and customisable personality settings to lifelike dolls, raising questions among researchers and campaigners about what it means to create increasingly realistic replicas of women.

AI Personalities, Sensors and Modes

RealDoll, the US sex-doll brand that introduced its AI-enabled 'Harmony' model in 2017, is running a waitlist for a new version that its website says will be available this year. According to the company's website, buyers can assign personality traits, such as 'spiritual' or 'insecure', through a phone app.

The new Harmony also has an electronic insert that connects via Bluetooth to the company's X-Mode app and detects touch, movement and speed. At the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year, Singapore-based sex-tech company Lovense introduced 'Emily', an AI-powered companion doll.

Emily can switch between personality modes including 'co-worker', 'gym crush' and 'tradwife' – a term evoking traditional domestic femininity that has gained traction in parts of the manosphere.

It can also generate AI selfies on request and recall previous conversations, with the company running a waitlist and shipping expected in the first quarter of 2027.

Custom Faces Spark Consent Concerns

Los Angeles-based Coeros offers custom sex-doll heads modelled on photographs of real people, original characters or AI-generated images.

The company says it can achieve around 90 per cent resemblance to a person in submitted photographs, depending on the quality of the images, and says the production process takes about one to two months, with an around US$1,790 (£1,390) price for a custom head.

A Coeros spokesperson told the Guardian that creating a custom design from reference images 'should not be interpreted as permission to use another person's likeness without their consent'. The company also said it does not support using its customisation service for harassment, impersonation or other non-consensual purposes.

Criminologist Prof Kelly Richards of Queensland University of Technology's Centre for Justice told the Guardian that the trend reflects what she sees as a wider problem. 'Sex dolls are actually just the extreme end of that,' she said, referring to what she described as a broader reversal in gender equality.

When a Sex Doll Looks Like a Body

Discarded sex dolls have sparked public alarm: this month, a doll marked with fake bruises was mistaken for a woman's body in a suitcase near Goulburn, south of Sydney. Police responded to reports of a body before forensic examination established that it was a doll and the investigation was called off.

Jerry Siew, owner of Australian sex-doll retailer SxDolled, told the Guardian that poorly handled disposal can waste emergency resources and cause public alarm.

He cited the Goulburn incident, saying it resulted in 20 hours of police work and stress for the local community.

Johannes Fuss, chair of forensic psychiatry and sex research at the University of Duisburg-Essen, cautioned that evidence about the relationship between sex-doll use and real-world offending remains limited.

Researchers currently lack robust longitudinal data to determine whether doll use is protective or could increase the risk of real-world offending, he told the Guardian.

As sex dolls become more humanlike and customisable, researchers and campaigners remain divided over what that means for attitudes towards women and the potential social consequences of the technology.

The available research does not establish a causal link between sex-doll ownership and real-world violence or offending. For now, the only consensus is that the technology is moving faster than the evidence – and faster than the law.