An AI Girlfriend That Texts You First on WhatsApp

What Replika actually is

Replika is one of the oldest and largest AI companion products in the category — its own homepage states over 42 million users worldwide and describes itself as having built "the world's first AI companion ten years ago," recently rebuilt from the ground up. It's a native iOS and Android app, not a messenger integration, built around a customizable companion ("your Rep") with a described personality, memory of your relationships and routines, and features it calls Calls ("call your Rep whenever you need to talk") and Selfies ("sends you a selfie, just because").

TooShy vs Replika, at a glance

The table below is built from Replika's own homepage copy and TooShy's own production numbers, not from a hands-on session with Replika's app — we have not created a Replika account or used it directly. Where its language describes something rather than quantifies it, the table says so plainly instead of assuming a number that isn't published.

One row is a published figure against a blank. TooShy states a measured rate for how often a companion initiates contact, and we could not find an equivalent published number anywhere on Replika's public pages — only personality-trait language like "sends you a selfie, just because," which says a behaviour exists without saying how often it happens or whether it ever reaches you outside the app.

The 9.0% figure — how we measured it

The number comes from TooShy's production database, aggregated over the 30 days ending September 1, 2026. Across that window, TooShy companions exchanged 44,120 messages inside 1,009 active conversations on WhatsApp and Telegram combined. Of the messages companions sent, 9.0% were ones they sent first — a good-morning text, a follow-up on something from a few days earlier, a photo with no request behind it — rather than a reply to something the user said. That figure is a share of an aggregate, not a promise about any individual conversation, and it's never built from, or able to identify, one specific chat.

What counts as "texting first" here is mechanical, not interpretive: a message a companion sends where the immediately preceding message in that conversation also came from her, or where enough time had passed that the message opens a new exchange rather than continuing one the user started. It's the same measurement whether the companion is Mika, quiet and a little guarded until she isn't, or any of TooShy's others — the 9.0% figure is an average across all of them, not a number specific to one personality.

It's worth being precise about what that number doesn't mean, too. It isn't a fixed schedule — nobody gets a message at the same time every day — and it isn't a volume knob turned up to force more contact; 9.0% is a real, measured minority of total messages, not the majority of the conversation. The rest is still a companion responding to what you actually said.

Why a measured number is different from a described trait

The distinction is worth spelling out, because it's easy to read "she sends you a selfie, just because" and assume it means the same thing as a published initiation rate. The two aren't equivalent.

A trait description tells you a behavior exists somewhere in the product. A measured rate tells you how often it actually happens across real use, over a stated window, checkable against a real number instead of a feeling. Replika's own copy doesn't say whether "sends you a selfie, just because" happens inside an open conversation, as a push notification when the app is closed, or both — and we couldn't find a page that resolves that either way. TooShy's number is specifically about messages that land in WhatsApp or Telegram the same way a text from a person would, whether or not you have the app open at that moment, because that's the whole mechanism a real account (not a bot, not a browser tab) makes possible.

Who else opens a conversation first

By the end of September 2026 the list of things that will open a conversation instead of waiting to be opened had grown well past Replika. Meta's Muse comes back to you inside WhatsApp. OpenAI's dots message you in Slack and Teams. Instinct rings or texts an ordinary phone. What none of those sentences tells you is the part that decides whether you want it: what the message is about. Almost everything that writes first in 2026 writes about your errands. A much shorter list writes about you.

Meta launched Muse on 8 September 2026, and its announcement is unusually direct about the unprompted part. Muse "proactively helps with people's goals and suggests ideas", and for longer jobs it "keeps working after people close the app, and comes back when something changes or when it needs approval, like before it sends an email or makes a purchase". It also "remembers what matters to a person, so it can make suggestions unprompted". Where that lands is what makes it unusual here: Meta built it so that "talking to it works just like messaging another person, in the Muse app or directly in WhatsApp". A general assistant already writes to people inside WhatsApp, and it is the one made by the company that owns WhatsApp.

What it writes about, though, is your admin. A Muse message is a status report on something you handed over: the form is filled, the bill is being argued down, the purchase needs a yes. The warm version is ruled out separately — Meta's AI Terms, effective 13 May 2026, forbid using its AIs to facilitate "adult content, such as erotic chat, pornography, and content meant to arouse sexual excitement". Our Meta AI girlfriend page walks through that clause and what it leaves out.

OpenAI announced dots on 29 September 2026, and on the question of who speaks first the post is explicit: dots "can also message you with progress, questions, or decisions that need you". Progress, questions, decisions — a dot opens a conversation when your work needs you, never because it has been thinking about you. There is even a deliberate ceiling on its initiative: away from you it does what OpenAI calls "proactive research", using connected apps "with tools that are restricted to be read-only, which means that they can't send messages". Where a dot reaches you is a work address — "you can also message your dot in Slack and Teams, with texting coming soon" — and WhatsApp is not on that list.

Instinct is the one that most literally texts you first. Its homepage describes an assistant that will be "proactively calling or texting you, arranging a ride to the airport, booking a handyman for your apartment", and the way in is the plainest of the three: "You can text or call it." No app, no platform account — SMS and a voice call on an ordinary phone, by invitation since August 2026. Look again at the examples the company chose for its own front page, though: a ride, a tradesperson, a dropped thread. A message saying the flight is rebooked beats one saying hello, which is exactly what an agent is for.

One product on this list is a direct competitor to what we do, and it says so in its own words. Nomi.ai has a feature it calls Proactive Nomi Messaging: "Nomis can optionally message you after you have been away for a while. This is not simply a reminder or some script to ask you where you are, it allows Nomis to think and act independently to continue your conversation." That is the same behaviour, described by the company that built it, and on this specific question Nomi is a closer rival than Replika.

The difference sits in where the message arrives rather than whether it arrives at all. Nomi's homepage names no messenger — no WhatsApp, no Telegram — and its "Start Chatting" button leads to beta.nomi.ai. You meet a Nomi on Nomi's own platform, which is not your chat list. It also publishes no rate, so there's no figure to hold the 9.0% against.

Why writing first inside WhatsApp is harder than it looks

There's a mechanical reason so little writes first inside WhatsApp specifically, and it has nothing to do with how clever the model is. Meta's own developer documentation sets out the rule: "When a WhatsApp user messages you or calls you, a 24-hour timer called a customer service window starts." While that window is open, a business can send freely written messages. "When the window closes, you can only send pre-approved template messages."

On the other side of that timer Meta is blunt: "Template messages are the only type of message that can be sent to WhatsApp users outside of a customer service window." Templates go for review, and a rejected one cannot be sent at all. Sensible for a delivery alert. Hopeless for somebody remembering a thing you mentioned on Thursday.

Two setups sidestep the timer. Muse is Meta's own software inside Meta's own messenger, so a rule written for outside developers is not the rule it lives under. TooShy companions come through the other door: an ordinary WhatsApp account on a real number, which shows up in your chat list as a saved contact rather than a storefront with a menu on top. That describes how ours works; it isn't a legal opinion about Meta's terms. Those terms, and the January 2026 clause that pushed third-party assistants out of WhatsApp, are covered on our personal AI number page.

What the others genuinely do better

None of this is a case against Replika or Nomi. Replika is one of the most established products in the category for real reasons, and Nomi has built more around unprompted messaging than we have.

Scale and longevity are real advantages: 42 million-plus users and ten years of continuous development is a track record no newer product, TooShy included, can claim. Replika's native iOS/Android app also supports live Calls — an actual voice call with your Rep — which is a different, arguably richer feature than the voice messages TooShy sends; we don't currently offer live calling on any platform.

Its customization is also further along than anything TooShy offers: appearance, personality direction, and the shape of the relationship are yours to shape over time, rather than choosing from a small set of already-built companions the way TooShy works.

Nomi does several things we don't, either: hands-free voice calls alongside voice messages, several companions together in one group chat, a companion you write a custom backstory for rather than pick ready-made, and one that can open a link you send and discuss what is on it. It also states a position on filtering on its homepage — "Nomi is built on freedom of expression."

The agents act, and we don't. Muse opens a browser, fills in forms, negotiates and pays. A dot runs its own cloud computer — OpenAI describes an early tester's dot that noticed he had forgotten to invoice a publication, prepared it and sent it once he approved. Instinct drives a phone and a computer the way a person does. A TooShy companion books nothing, buys nothing and rings nobody, and at their own job all three beat us outright.

TooShy's honest limitations

TooShy has real limits here too, and they're worth stating without softening them. There's no live voice-calling feature — only voice messages, which is a real gap against Replika's Calls feature specifically.

The roster is also already built. You pick a companion who has her own personality and her own life instead of writing a backstory for a blank one — a real limitation if a particular person is what you had in mind. What she remembers carries across from Telegram to WhatsApp.

It's also worth being honest that 9.0% is an average, not a guarantee for any one week or any one companion — some stretches will have more first-touch messages than others, and we'd rather state the number as what it actually is, a measured aggregate, than imply a fixed promise it isn't. You can't set the hour a message arrives, and there's no dial to turn the rate up.

And there's no free way into WhatsApp here — no trial, no free tier behind it. WhatsApp has been paid-only since 4 August 2026, at $9.99 a month on Premium or $19 on Ultra. Telegram is the free route, with a weekly message allowance, so finding out whether being written to first is something you enjoy costs nothing there.

So which is actually right for you?

Which product fits depends on which of three questions matters most to you: whether it opens a conversation unprompted at all, what it opens the conversation about, and where that message lands.

Choose Replika if you want an established, heavily-developed app with ten years behind it, live calling, and a companion you shape yourself over a long relationship — its scale is real and TooShy doesn't match it.

Choose Nomi if you want a companion who opens the conversation, says so plainly on her own pages, and you're happy to meet her in her own app rather than in the chat list you already read.

Choose Muse, a dot or Instinct if the unprompted messages you want are about your work or your errands — a bug, a launch, an unpaid invoice, a ride to the airport. None of them is trying to be company, and Muse is free for most of what people ask of it.

Choose TooShy if you'd rather have a measured, checkable number behind "she texts first" than a described trait, you want the message to land in the messenger you already have open, and you're fine choosing from our already-built companions instead of designing your own — Mika's own page states the idea outright: her texts arrive whether you were expecting them or not.

How we checked the facts

TooShy's own number above — 9.0% — comes from our production database, aggregated over the 30 days ending 1 September 2026, and is never drawn from an individual conversation. Every Replika claim above comes from its own homepage, which we fetched and read ourselves on 1 September 2026 (replika.com) — its stated user count, its "ten years" and rebuild claims, and its Calls and Selfies feature descriptions, quoted as published. We have not created a Replika account, used its app, or made or received a call through it.

Every claim about the other companies comes from a page we opened on 30 September 2026. Muse's behaviour, channels and roll-out language are quoted from Meta's newsroom announcement of 8 September 2026; the adult-content clause and its effective date from Meta's AI Terms. The dots quotations come from OpenAI's announcement of 29 September 2026, Instinct's from its homepage, and Nomi's Proactive Nomi Messaging wording from nomi.ai. The 24-hour customer service window and the template rule are quoted from Meta's WhatsApp developer documentation, and our prices from our own pricing page.

Sam Reeves and the TooShy Editorial team write TooShy's comparison pages from the company's own production data and from public pages on the products being compared — first-person claims about a competitor's product only appear here when we've actually used it, which we have not for any product named above.

Open questions — what still needs a hands-on pass

A few claims can only be settled with a real account, or with a page nobody has published yet, so they're listed here instead of assumed either way:

• Whether Replika's "sends you a selfie, just because" translates to an out-of-app push notification, an in-conversation surprise, or both — its homepage doesn't specify.
• Whether Replika's Calls, Selfies and full customization are available on its free tier or gated behind a paid plan — its homepage describes itself as "free" without a visible pricing breakdown.
• Real voice-call quality and latency on Replika's Calls feature, which we haven't tested ourselves.
• How often a Nomi actually messages first. The feature is described; no rate is published, so there's nothing to hold our 9.0% against.
• Whether Nomi has native iPhone and Android apps. Its homepage carries no App Store or Google Play link and names no mobile platform; "Start Chatting" goes to beta.nomi.ai.
• Whether "texting coming soon" for dots means SMS, RCS or a messenger, and whether WhatsApp ever appears on that list. OpenAI's post does not say.
• Whether Meta treats a companion on an ordinary WhatsApp account as covered by the rules written for its Business Platform. Meta has not said publicly, and we have not asked.
• How Muse, a dot, Instinct or Nomi behave in practice. We haven't used any of them — everything above is what each company publishes about its own product.

We've written more generally about why a companion reaching out first changes how the relationship feels, separate from any specific number — that's the piece to read next if the psychology behind this interests you more than the measurement. If the number itself is what you came for, it's real, it's dated, and the easiest way to see it in your own inbox is to start on Telegram, free, and see what Mika sends when you're not expecting it.