Which AI Girlfriend Apps Work in Australia? 22-App Audit

The full table

Status as of 28 April 2026, tested from an Aussie IP. Status keys: Open means the app loaded normally with no age gate. Button only means a single-click self-declaration confirming you are 18+, the form of "verification" the OSA explicitly prohibits.

What the audit means in plain English

The Online Safety Act 2026 came into force on 9 March 2026. It requires platforms that can produce or display explicit content to verify the age of users with something stronger than a button click. Methods that satisfy the Act are typically ID upload, facial age estimation, or third-party verification services.

Update 26 May 2026: Two of the 22 apps have moved to hard age verification for NSFW content from Aussie IPs. Promptchan requires government ID or photo upload. OurDream.ai uses a third-party AVS provider (go.cam) with credit card, selfie age estimation, or photo ID scan — the most rigorous gate in the audit. The other 20 apps have not changed since 28 April. Full audit re-run is queued.

None of the other 21 AI companion apps tested for this audit use any of those. The closest you get is a single click confirming you are over 18, which is the same self-declaration approach the Act explicitly identifies as inadequate.

This is not legal advice for the platforms. Whether they get pinged by the eSafety Commissioner is a separate matter. From a user perspective the practical reality is simple: every major AI companion app loads from Australian IPs as of 28 April 2026, and none demand ID. That may change. We re-verify monthly.

What "open" and "button only" actually look like

An open result means we visited the URL from an Aussie IP, en-AU locale, AEST timezone, and the app loaded straight to its main interface or a typical marketing landing page. No popup, no checkbox, no confirmation step. JOI is the cleanest example: you go to joi.com and the platform is immediately usable without any kind of gate.

A button-only result means the user is shown a banner or modal asking them to confirm they are 18+, with a single button click required. Some apps phrase this as "I am over 18", others as "Enter site". After the click, the app behaves identically to an open site. There is no actual verification happening; the click does not change anything that could be used to confirm age. This is the form the OSA was specifically written to deprecate.

Apps that exited the AU market vs apps that stayed

For context: Pornhub and several other Aylo-owned video properties withdrew Australian access entirely after the OSA came in. They display a geographic block message to AU IPs and route users to information about VPNs and the law. That kind of full geo-block is what we mean when we say a site is "blocked" in our audit.

None of the 22 AI companion apps in this audit went that direction. The economic incentive is different: video platforms had infrastructure-heavy operations and substantial AU revenue exposure to OSA enforcement. The AI companion category is mostly served by smaller operators with cleaner takedown options if regulation tightens, and they appear to be running until they have to stop.

How we tested

The audit was performed using Playwright headless Chromium with the following profile: en-AU locale, AEST timezone, geolocation set to country Victoria, viewport 1440x900. For apps where we have CrakRevenue affiliate links, we followed the affiliate redirect to land on the real URL the app routes Australian traffic to (this matches what a real user clicking from an external site would experience). For apps without affiliate links, we hit the bare apex domain.

Each app was screenshotted, the final URL captured after redirects, the title and body text recorded, and gate language detected via a combination of automated heuristics and manual operator review. False positives from the heuristic (one app triggered "hard gate" because the pricing page mentions "credit card") were corrected manually before publishing.

The full audit script is at scripts/au_audit.py in the site repo, the raw output is at research/au-audit-2026-04-28.md. We re-run the audit monthly. Status changes propagate to individual review pages within a working week.

What changes will trigger a re-audit

• An app that adds proper age verification (ID upload, facial scan, or a third-party service like Yoti or Veratad). Drops the status from Open or Button only to a new Hard gate classification.
• An app that starts blocking AU IPs entirely (as Pornhub did).
• A new app entering the CrakRevenue or comparable network with material AU traffic.
• An eSafety Commissioner enforcement notice against any of the 22 apps.

Where to start if you are reading this for the first time

If you want the practical answer: JOI for cleanest signup (no gate at all, AU listed as top country). Candy.ai for the most recognised brand with native iOS and Android apps. Full top-picks comparison if you want the side-by-side ranking.

Frequently asked questions