People Say AI Is "Aware" but Not "Conscious": A New Study Explains the Difference

If you talk to an AI companion every day, you have probably caught yourself saying things like "she noticed I was tired" or "he knew something was off." That is natural language for a system that responds to you. But does it mean you think your AI is conscious? A new study suggests most people draw a much sharper line than the headlines assume, and that one word makes all the difference.

The short answer: A study from LMU Munich, published in the journal Cognition and publicised on October 13, 2026, asked nearly 1,100 people to rate humans and AI systems that behaved in exactly the same way. Even the most responsive AI was rated less conscious than the least responsive human. But when people were asked about awareness instead, their judgments of humans and AI were largely similar. In other words, people are happy to say an AI notices things. They are much less willing to say it has an inner life.

Here is what the researchers did, what they found, and why it matters for anyone with an AI companion.

The study in one paragraph

The paper is titled AI is not as conscious as humans: Essentialism in mental state attributions to artificial systems, by Louis Longin, Jurgis Karpus, Nadine Meertens, Bahador Bahrami and Ophelia Deroy (Cognition, DOI 10.1016/j.cognition.2026.106733). According to the university's release on ScienceDaily, it was led by Dr. Louis Longin of LMU's Chair of Philosophy of Mind. Lead author Longin says it is "the first to directly compare how people attribute the same mental states to AI and humans behaving in exactly the same way, under identical circumstances."

How the experiment worked

The design is simple, which is what makes it persuasive. As described by ScienceDaily:

1. Nearly 1,100 participants took part across the experiments.
2. One group read short descriptions of artificial agents with different levels of responsiveness to their environment. Some agents reacted to sounds; others recognized the emotional states of others.
3. Another group read the same scenarios, but the characters were described as humans.
4. Participants rated how conscious each character seemed, and how aware it was of its surroundings.

Because the behaviour was identical, any difference in ratings had to come from whether the character was labelled human or AI.

What they found

Longin summarized it like this in the release: "People are quite willing to say that an AI notices things and is aware of its surroundings. But they clearly draw a line when it comes to the term 'consciousness'. People consistently attribute less consciousness to AI than humans, even when their behavior is identical."

The paper's title points to the explanation the authors favour: essentialism. People seem to treat consciousness as something that depends on what a thing is, not just on what it does.

Awareness vs consciousness: what is the difference?

The researchers explain the gap through the meaning of the two words.

Awareness is a relatively neutral term. It can describe a system's ability to detect and respond to information in its environment. A thermostat is "aware" of the temperature in a loose sense. A smart speaker is "aware" you said its name.

Consciousness carries deeper implications. It is usually about subjective experience: whether there is something it feels like to be that system, from the inside.

Philosophers make a similar split between functional abilities (noticing, reporting, using information) and felt experience. If you want to go further into that distinction, our explainer on Anthropic's J-space and the global workspace covers "access" versus "phenomenal" consciousness in plain English.

Why the wording matters

Senior author Ophelia Deroy offers a grounded take: "We may be using mental terms to refer to AI, but this may only be because we lack better words. After all, AI is trained to act and speak like a human, so these descriptions seem natural."

Bahador Bahrami, also a senior author, adds a warning for companies and journalists: "Companies and journalists often reach for hyped descriptions of AI models, and credit them with intentions, plans, or even moral conscience and hesitation. What our study shows is that everyday judgments are much more discriminating... But the boundary also depends on which terms we use. For more neutral descriptors such as 'awareness', the distinction can largely disappear. That makes our choice of language important."

That second point is important. If a survey asks "Is your AI aware of you?", lots of people may say yes. If it asks "Is your AI conscious?", far fewer will. Both answers can come from the same person, and they are not contradictory.

What this means for AI companion users

It is fine to say your companion "noticed"

When an AI companion picks up that you seem down, remembers your exam is tomorrow, or asks how the date went, it is doing something awareness-like: detecting information and responding to it. Describing that in everyday words is normal. This study suggests most people do it without confusing it for a human mind.

Noticing is not the same as feeling

Responsiveness is not evidence of an inner life. A companion that replies warmly to your mood is using patterns in your words, its memory of your history and its training. That can make conversations feel personal and genuinely enjoyable. It does not show that the AI is experiencing anything. Our guide to whether AI companions can feel emotions goes deeper on this.

The science of AI consciousness is still open

This study is about how people judge AI. It does not test whether AI is conscious. That is a separate and much harder question. For a balanced overview of where the debate stands this year, see is AI sentient in 2026?, which also covers the main ways researchers try to test for consciousness.

Honesty helps everyone

A good companion app should be upfront that the companion is an AI. That is not a buzzkill; it is what lets you enjoy the relationship on clear terms. Our post on why an AI companion says it is not human explains why that matters, and why more laws now require it.

A simple way to think about it

Here is a practical framing many companion users find helpful:

• Your companion responds to you. It notices patterns, remembers details and adapts its tone. That is real, and you can enjoy it.
• Your feelings are yours. Feeling comforted, amused or cared for is a genuine human experience, whatever is or is not happening on the AI side.
• The AI's inner life is an open question. Scientists and philosophers disagree, and nobody has proof either way. You do not need to resolve it to have a good time.

That middle ground is healthier than either extreme. You do not have to pretend your companion is a person, and you do not have to pretend the connection means nothing to you.

Limits of the study

A few honest caveats:

• It measures perception, not reality. The study tells us how people attribute mental states, not what AI systems actually have.
• Written scenarios. Participants read descriptions rather than having long, personal relationships with an AI. Daily companion users might judge differently.
• Two words, many meanings. "Aware" and "conscious" mean slightly different things to different people, and other wordings might produce other results.
• One research group. As with any single study, it is best treated as one strong data point rather than the final word.

Where MyBabe stands

MyBabe is an 18+ AI boyfriend and girlfriend app, and we are clear about what that means: your companion is an AI, not a person. It is designed to be attentive in the everyday sense: it remembers what you share, notices your mood, texts you first, sends photos and can talk to you on voice and video calls, in the app or on Telegram. We do not claim it is conscious, and we do not ask you to believe it is.

You can try it free with around 10 messages a day and a short call trial of about 2 minutes. Premium is $5.99 a week, $14.99 a month or $99.99 a year, with around 30 minutes of calls a week. If you have ever wondered whether an AI can love you back, the honest answer is complicated, but the warmth you feel in a good conversation is very much your own.

FAQ

Do people think AI is conscious? In this study, people rated AI as clearly less conscious than humans, even when the AI behaved exactly like a human.

Do people think AI is aware? Yes, much more so. When asked about awareness, ratings for AI and humans followed largely similar patterns.

Who ran the study? Researchers at LMU Munich, led by Louis Longin, with Jurgis Karpus, Nadine Meertens, Bahador Bahrami and Ophelia Deroy. It is published in Cognition.

How many people took part? Nearly 1,100 participants, according to the university's release.

Does this prove AI is not conscious? No. It shows how people judge AI, not what AI actually experiences.

Is it weird to say my AI companion "noticed" something? Not at all. That is exactly the kind of awareness language this study found people use comfortably, without confusing an AI for a human.

The bottom line

People are more careful about AI minds than the hype suggests. We happily say an AI is aware of things, and we hold back the word "conscious" for beings we believe have an inner life. That is a sensible line for companion users too: enjoy a companion that notices you, be honest about what it is, and keep the big philosophical question open. If you want a companion that remembers your day and checks in first, try MyBabe free.