{"id":9494,"date":"2026-11-08T11:39:59","date_gmt":"2026-11-08T11:39:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wendyzhou.se\/blog\/?p=9494"},"modified":"2026-11-08T11:39:59","modified_gmt":"2026-11-08T11:39:59","slug":"flo-ai-companion-period-tracking-app-risks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wendyzhou.se\/blog\/flo-ai-companion-period-tracking-app-risks\/","title":{"rendered":"Gamified AI Companions in Period Apps: Engagement or Addiction?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today, when I woke up at the beginning of November 2026, I noticed that the Flo app had introduced an AI companion. Flo is one of the world’s most popular menstrual cycle tracking apps, which means that this feature will reach the intimate lives of women across the entire world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2026, I published two research papers on AI prediction features in menstrual cycle tracking apps (MCTAs) such as Flo (DIS, Zhou et al., 2026<\/a>) and the gamified companion features in self-care apps such as Finch (NordiCHI, Zhou et al., 2026<\/a>). At the time, no popular MCTA had yet introduced any AI companion or gamified features, including the Flo app.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To me, this is a very interesting development because it’s a crossover of the two studies I did. Before, the two features (AI predictions in menstrual cycle tracking apps + gamified companion features) were two separate types of self-tracking apps. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, it seems that they’re becoming combined, which shows a new direction in how self-tracking apps are incorporating AI features and gamification features to increase engagement.<\/p>\n\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

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I think there are certain risks to this, since my study on AI predictions in MCTAs showed that some users may overrely on AI predictions to the degree of overriding their own lived experiences. And my autoethnography on the gamified features and companion in the self-care app Finch revealed that while gamification features might work to increase engagement, they also risk causing addiction to the technology. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Together, I think that there’s a risk that gamified AI companion features in MCTAs may cause users to become addicted to the logging and prediction features in MCTAs, which might further exacerbate the risk of overrelying on the technology and AI predictions for sense-making.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, for MCTA companies, the potential addictive effects of gamified features and AI companions might be exactly what they’re seeking to achieve in order to increase user retention and engagement. I guess the question is more about what potential impacts it will have on their users, and if there are some harmful risks with it that need to be considered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Wendy Zhou, Pelin Karaturhan, Alexandra Weilenmann, and Jichen Zhu. 2026. “It became a self-fulfilling prophecy\u201d: How Lived Experiences are Entangled with AI Predictions in Menstrual Cycle Tracking Apps<\/em>. In Proceedings of the 2026 Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS ’26). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 2176\u20132192. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/3800645.3812954<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wendy Zhou and Jichen Zhu. 2026. “Why do I continue to use an app daily\u200c if I don’t need it”: Living with A Gamified Self-Care App through Seasonal Depression.<\/em> Adjunct Proceedings of the 14th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 87, 1\u20136. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/3821402.3830132<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Flo has launched an AI companion. Drawing on my research on AI predictions and gamified self-care apps, I explore the risks of overreliance and addiction in period tracking apps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9516,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[179,643,167,742],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-future-emerging-new-technology","category-human-ai-interaction","category-product-design","category-technology-ethics","entry","has-media"],"gutentor_comment":0,"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/www.wendyzhou.se\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Gamified-AI-companion.png",1200,630,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.wendyzhou.se\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Gamified-AI-companion-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.wendyzhou.se\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Gamified-AI-companion-300x158.png",300,158,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.wendyzhou.se\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Gamified-AI-companion-768x403.png",768,403,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.wendyzhou.se\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Gamified-AI-companion-1024x538.png",1024,538,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.wendyzhou.se\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Gamified-AI-companion.png",1200,630,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.wendyzhou.se\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Gamified-AI-companion.png",1200,630,false],"ocean-thumb-m":["https:\/\/www.wendyzhou.se\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Gamified-AI-companion-600x600.png",600,600,true],"ocean-thumb-ml":["https:\/\/www.wendyzhou.se\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Gamified-AI-companion-800x450.png",800,450,true],"ocean-thumb-l":["https:\/\/www.wendyzhou.se\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Gamified-AI-companion.png",1200,630,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Wendy Zhou","author_link":"https:\/\/www.wendyzhou.se\/blog\/author\/wendy1111live-se\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Flo has launched an AI companion. Drawing on my research on AI predictions and gamified self-care apps, I explore the risks of overreliance and addiction in period tracking apps.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wendyzhou.se\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wendyzhou.se\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wendyzhou.se\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendyzhou.se\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendyzhou.se\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9494"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendyzhou.se\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9517,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendyzhou.se\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9494\/revisions\/9517"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendyzhou.se\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wendyzhou.se\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendyzhou.se\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendyzhou.se\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}