From ‘BuddhaBot’ to $1.99 chats with AI Jesus, the faith-based tech boom is here

In this image from video provided by Just Like Me in April 2026, the company's co-founder and investor Jeff Tinsley, bottom right, interacts with an AI-generated Jesus. (Just Like Me via AP) 2026-04-10T11:04:08Z CAMARILLO, Calif. (AP) — For some evangelical Christians, faith is about having a personal relationship with Jesus. At $1.99 per minute, the tech company Just Like Me is taking that concept to a new level. Users of the platform can join video calls with an avatar of Jesus generated by artificial intelligence. Like other religious AI tools on the market, it offers words of prayer and encouragement in various languages. With the occasional glitch, it remembers previous conversations and speaks through not-quite-synced lips. “You do feel a little accountable to the AI,” CEO Chris Breed said. “They’re your friend. You’ve made an attachment.” The rush to create faith-based generative AI is unsurprising, given the popularity of chatbots for everything from therapy and medical advice to companionship and romance. They range from alleged Hindu gurus and Buddhist priests to AI Jesuses and chatbots akin to OpenAI’s ChatGPT for Catholics. As religious AI tools become increasingly common, many people are reckoning with how these technologies shape their relationship to faith, authority and spiritual guidance. A faith-based AI gold rush Christian software engineer Cameron Pak developed criteria to help believers interrogate apps designed for Christians — like that it must clearly identify itself as AI and “must not fabricate or misrepresent Scripture.” There are other deal-breakers: “AI cannot pray for you, because the AI is not alive.” Pak also developed a website featuring curated Christian apps that he believes meet the criteria, including a sermon translator and an AI coach designed to help users overcome lust. “AI, especially if you give it all the tools that it needs, it can be so helpful. But it also can be so dangerous,” Pak said. Some models have been shut down or overhauled because they generated misinformation or raised worries about data privacy, said Beth Singler, an anthropologist who studies religion and AI at the University of Zurich. Aside from practical concerns, people from many faiths are grappling with larger philosophical questions about what sort of role, if any, AI should play in religion. (