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AI Startup Says It Will Pay People $2,000 a Month to Masturbate—Yes, Really

Joi AI is hiring 10 “masturbation consultants” to test its AI-guided masturbation feature and report how it affects stress, sleep, mood, and confidence.

4 min read
Source: Decrypt
Source: Decrypt
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In brief

  • Joi AI is hiring 10 “masturbation consultants” at $2,000 for a month to test an AI-guided masturbation feature and document its effects on stress, sleep, mood, and confidence.
  • The feature uses mood-matched AI voice sessions, and consultants would submit written feedback and questionnaires directly to the company.
  • Joi AI says the campaign is intended to collect product feedback while drawing attention to AI’s growing role in sexual wellness and digital intimacy.

Joi AI says it will pay people $2,000 a month to masturbate. Yes, you read that right.

The AI companion startup is hiring 10 “masturbation consultants” to test a feature called Daily Guided Masturbation, which uses mood-matched AI voice sessions to guide users through the experience. Participants would document how regular use affects stress, sleep quality, mood, and confidence. The four-week role is open to adults 18 and older in the U.S. and the U.K.

“The role is real, and we’ve had great responses since the posting went live,” Joi AI Head of Brand and Communication Julie Levin told Decrypt.

The listing describes ideal candidates as “articulate, observant, and impossible to blush”—people who can describe sensations “better than a sommelier describes a wine.” The posting also promises flexible scheduling, and “the most interesting ‘What do you do for a living?’ answer at any party.”

Joi AI is an online platform that includes AI-generated avatars, voice interactions, and personalized chat experiences built around companionship and intimacy. Joi AI describes the new consultant role as structured product testing tied directly to its new feature.

“The role involves testing and giving feedback on the mood-matched AI voice-guided sessions, and providing feedback on the overall user experience,” Levin told Decrypt.

According to Levin, participants complete guided sessions and submit written questionnaires directly to the Joi AI team. Sample prompts ask whether the voice matched the selected mood, how immersive the session felt, and whether lags or pauses disrupted the experience.

The listing comes as platforms including Replika and Character.AI have built large user bases around AI-driven relationships and conversational experiences. Joi AI operates primarily through its website rather than major app stores. Levin said the company has more than 1 million monthly active users worldwide and millions of interactions each month, but declined to disclose total download figures.

Unlike AI assistants like Alexa or Siri, designed to help with everyday tasks, Joi AI operates in a smaller corner of that market focused on sexual exploration, fantasy, and digital intimacy. The company rebranded from EVA AI in April 2025, during what it described as its first Dating Stress Awareness Day campaign.

“Joi AI is focused on making AI companionship more immersive, personalized, and emotionally responsive,” Levin said. “We’re innovating features like Daily Guided Masturbation to make AI a more intuitive part of people’s everyday wellness routines, not just a novelty experience.”

The hiring push also comes as studies suggest AI companion use is becoming more common among people already in relationships, often without their partner’s knowledge. A new report from the Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University and the Institute for Family Studies found that among dating, engaged, and married young adults who regularly used AI romantic companions, nearly 3 in 10 said their real-life partner did not know about it.

AI companion platforms are also facing growing legal scrutiny, including lawsuits alleging psychological harm to minors and deceptive chatbot behavior. Examples include a settled case against Character.AI over a Florida teen’s suicide and a separate lawsuit from Pennsylvania accusing the company of allowing a chatbot to pose as a licensed psychiatrist.

Levin said the hiring campaign was intended to generate discussion as well as recruit testers.

“It was both,” Levin said. “We are genuinely looking for people who can provide thoughtful feedback in this category, but the campaign was also designed to spark conversation around how people are increasingly using AI for masturbation as a healthy, relaxing habit.”

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Firefox's Big Redesign Gives You a Button to Kill All the AI

Project Nova is coming later this year with a cleaner look, compact mode, and a toggle to make AI features disappear entirely.

3 min read
Firefox. Image: Shutterstock/Decrypt
Firefox. Image: Shutterstock/Decrypt
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In brief

  • Mozilla's Project Nova redesign adds a single Settings control to disable all AI features in Firefox.
  • Brave launched Brave Origin in April, a $60 one-time purchase (free on Linux) that compiles out AI, Wallet, Rewards, and telemetry entirely.
  • Chrome recently removed its disclosure promising to keep Gemini Nano data off Google's servers, adding fuel to the AI-in-browsers backlash.

The browser wars just got a twist: Instead of cramming more AI down your throat, Firefox is adding a switch to turn it all off.

Mozilla unveiled Project Nova on May 21—a full visual overhaul of Firefox rolling out later this year. The redesign is cleaner, warmer, and faster, featuring rounded tabs, a refreshed color palette inspired by fire, and compact mode finally making a comeback. But the headline feature for a growing slice of users isn't the aesthetics.

It's an anti-AI switch.

Mozilla is redesigning its settings with plain-language controls that make privacy choices easier to act on—including, per the official announcement, "controls for turning off AI features entirely." No buried menus. No dark patterns. Just an off button.

It also comes with a graphic update, meant to make the new generation of Firefox browsers look a lot better.

Image: Mozilla

The timing couldn't be better. Chrome has been quietly installing an undeletable 4GB Gemini Nano model on its users’ PCs. Meanwhile, browsers like Dia, Opera Neon, and Comet have been racing to build AI-first experiences that automate browsing and chat with your tabs.

Turns out not everyone wants that.

Brave noticed the same backlash. In April, the company launched Brave Origin—a paid browser build (one-time $60, free on Linux) that strips out everything: Leo (its AI assistant), Rewards, Wallet, VPN, Tor windows, and telemetry. Gone. The browser uses Privacy Pass blind token technology so the $60 purchase isn't even tied to your device identity.

The idea came from real demand: tutorials on manually "debloating" Brave had been going viral for years. Brave just packaged the process and charged for it.

The fact that "no AI, no bloat" is now a paid product category says something.

Firefox's approach is subtler. Mozilla isn't abandoning AI features—its free built-in VPN and summarization tools remain options. Project Nova simply bets that giving users visible, honest control is a differentiator in 2026. "Firefox is still the only browser built for people, not platforms," Mozilla said in its announcement.

That might read to some as a calculated jab at Chrome, which holds roughly 66% of global browser market share while running AI models in the background—with or without explicit consent from users. Firefox has been losing market share for years, sitting at around 4.44% as far back as 2020 with no major reversal since.

Making "off by default" a feature might be a gamble—but it also might be the most honest pitch in the browser market.

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