Kizuna Ai is a virtual YouTuber who runs A.I. Channel and her sub-channel A.I. Games. She's a proud artificial intelligence who likes to give viewers a look into the virtual world. From her first introduction video, she announces her desires to learn more about humans and to appear in a commercial. Always looking to gain more popularity and make money (those virtual bills don't pay themselves!), Ai likes to talk about her charming points and play popular games to expand her reach. Her popularity really took off with her playthrough of Inside due to her hilarious reactions and imaginative explanation of what was happening in the game. She also encourages her fan base to reach out to her on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to give their feedback and request their concerns be featured during her Kizuna Ai Trials. This is where she judges cases regarding friendship, feelings, and ways to live life. Her video about her new tips on how to appeal to men reveals she very much likes muscular guys. Although she seems to be attracted to other A.I. such as Siri, as seen in her interview with her A.I. senpai.

While you can find some of her playthroughs on her main channel, A.I. Games is where she solely focuses on gaming. Her Monster Hunter World video reveals she has a type when it comes to the ladies but cares far more about cats than anything. She is always aiming for what's cute and makes notes on things she learns from her games about humans and their interactions. Despite being an AI she has very extreme reactions to disgust, excitement, frustration, and fear which are often the main point of whatever gaming video she releases. She plays a lot of first-person shooters and horror games, though she'll also play some family-friendly games like Mario Kart here and there.

Due to her fast speech and inflection, some people argue that there's no way Kizuna Ai could be an A.I. Her speech patterns and voice seem far too human when compared to A.I. such as Siri and Amazon.com's Alexa which have a much more robotic quality to their voices. Her processing speed is also incredibly fast and it seems unlikely she would react the way she does without a script. It's true you can indeed download Ai's character model on her website kizunaai.com. Perhaps there is nothing more to her than an illusion of artificial intelligence surrounding a manipulated model and carefully constructed script.

YouTube channel MrDanteDavid lists several proposed theories and yet, somehow, they don't quite cover all that Kizuna Ai is capable of. Live 2D is facial recognition software that can track a person's face and control a cute 2D anime girl module that carries over human expression near perfectly. Considering that wouldn't translate well to the wide range of movement and camera angles she utilizes during her videos, it holds little weight. Another more convincing theory is that, considering her model can be downloaded with MMD (Miku Miku Dance) and used by anyone, perhaps there is just a team of people who come up with funny ideas for videos based on what popular YouTubers do and use the Kizuna Ai model as a more attractive representation of their ideas. Seeing the amazing work people can do with MMD is pretty convincing. However, Kizuna Ai's appearance at Tokyo Game Show 2017 sees her responding in real time to questions asked of her. How would a premade model know to wave at appropriate times or move its mouth in a way that reflects an appropriate answer to questions asked on the spot? It seems unlikely considering just how well and quickly she responds. Perhaps it is at those times her voice actress uses something like Xbox Kinect which can be linked with MMD for on the spot reactions and dialogue. Kizuna Ai definitely has very fluid motion compared to a lot of MMD models, so if this were the case, it's likely some rather large company is behind her creation as the space and technology needed would be a little much for the average YouTube group.

Whatever the truth may be, the idea Kizuna Ai represents is alluring to fans of technology and anime alike. We love artificial intelligence that goes beyond simply answering our commands but has a deeper grasp on very human communication techniques like trickery, boasting, and recognizing satire. Watching Will Smith tell an A.I. named Sophia a robot joke only for her to make a hesitant face before explaining how it's not applicable to her is hilarious because she is able to understand the connotation of the joke, she just doesn't think it's funny. A lot of humor and interest is created by unpredictable reactions to a conceivable circumstance that we recognize as non-harmful. We're used to the simple ‘ask a question, receive an answer’ that most A.I. up till now have been able to give, and Kizuna Ai gives a much greater departure to that model than ever before. She's even inspired other virtual YouTubers like Kaguya Luna with a pretty interesting voice and outfit design who also has a large following and less than perfectly modeled characters like Kasuka Reiden and Tsuji Motoko. Ai's influence has extended to stickers on messaging app LINE as well as goods with her image on them, a dream she has mentioned in some of her videos. She'll even be making her TV debut as a voice actress for the anime Magical Girl Site.