Abstract for Online Program Book (maximum 150 words)
This paper interrogates the rise of AI-mediated relationality in Black communities asking how such technological interventions may reshape relationships across the lifespan and how digital religion offers expanded discourse for exploring these new connections. Using autoethnography, qualitative data from both social media and digital religion participants, and sociological research on artificial intelligence and religion, this paper examines how AI engagement reconfigures embodiment, desire, and expectations of intimacy. The paper ends by critically situating AI intimacy within longer histories of racialized embodiment, moral regulation, and technological mediation ultimately offering insight on emergent technologies and Black religion.