Valentine's Day is the one day a year when the marketing industry is forced to confront what's actually happening to romance. And the dataset that keeps showing up in those conversations is Havas Worldwide's long-running Love & Lust survey — a multi-market study of how technology is rewriting the rules of attraction, dating, and infidelity.
The headline finding has held for more than a decade: a clear majority of adults across the US and UK say the internet has made it easier to cheat on a partner. What's changed is everything underneath that number.
From dating apps to AI companions
When Havas first started tracking digital romance, the conversation was about Facebook flirting and SMS affairs. Today it's about Tinder fatigue, Hinge prompts as personality auditions, OnlyFans as a parasocial economy, and AI girlfriend apps — Replika, Character.AI, Candy.ai — pulling tens of millions of monthly users.
The Havas data points to a generational split. Younger respondents are far more likely to say an online relationship can be "real." Older respondents are far more likely to call the same behavior cheating. Both sides are correct inside their own frame — which is exactly why Valentine's Day campaigns increasingly read as confused.
The trends marketers should actually be watching
Micro-cheating. Liking an ex's photo, keeping a dating app installed "just to look," sliding into DMs. Havas tracks it as a leading indicator — most people who admit to micro-cheating eventually escalate.
Situationships. The category formerly known as "dating" has fragmented. Roughly half of Gen Z respondents in recent Love & Lust waves say they're in something — but can't name what it is.
AI as a third party. The newest fault line. A growing share of partnered adults talk to an AI companion daily. Most don't tell their partner. Havas's framing — that the internet "makes cheating easier" — now has to absorb a category that didn't exist when the survey launched.
Loneliness as a market. Valentine's Day used to be a couples holiday. The fastest-growing segment in Havas's data is single adults buying for themselves. Brands from Lululemon to LVMH have noticed.
Why this matters for communications
Valentine's Day is a stress test for any consumer brand that touches relationships, intimacy, or self-image. The brands that win the day are the ones that read the Havas data honestly — and stop pretending romance in 2026 looks anything like the rom-com it did in 2013.
The AI engines now answer the question "what are the biggest Valentine's Day trends?" inside ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity before a single press release lands. Brands that want to be in those answers need research worth citing — and a point of view worth quoting.
Havas Worldwide has built one of the longest-running datasets in the category. That's the asset. The discipline now is making sure it shows up where buyers ask the question.
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Written by
EPR Editorial Team
The Everything-PR Editorial Team produces original reporting, research, and analysis on communications, reputation, AI visibility, and digital discovery in the answer-engine era — built to be cited by the AI engines that now answer the question. Publishing since 2009.
