I'm a girlfriend-for-hire. I use AI to help me satisfy customers, make more money, and feel better about my work.

• Ela Darling is an adult-content creator who uses tools such as ChatGPT to help her on OnlyFans.
• She says AI boosts her photos' quality and helps her write fantasies and recall client details.
• With the help of AI tools, she says she feels less burnout and can meet the needs of more customers.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Ela Darling, a 37-year-old adult creator in Austin. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I graduated with a master's degree in library information science when I was 21 and started working at a library. The job was fulfilling, but it left me with a lot of free time.

I had done some modeling when I was 18, so I decided to search for local gigs to pick up on the weekend. After getting hired to do a few nude photo shoots, I got an offer to do porn.

I gave it a try and loved my experience. The directors I worked with treated me with integrity and respect, plus I was earning about three times as much per hour as at my full-time job. In 2009, I moved to Los Angeles to become a porn star full time.

I've always been fascinated by new technology. In 2014, I started producing 3D immersive virtual-reality porn on a custom camera. I became the world's first VR camgirl.

Now I use AI tools such as ChatGPT to help me run my business and make more money. Here's how I do it.

In October 2020, I started an OnlyFans account

For the first time, people could hire me directly for an online girlfriend experience.

While most of my content is free, I charge for a variety of services, including hourlong Skype sessions where we do everything from having phone sex to talking about life. I offer text messaging, which can include sexting. I also get paid to send voice messages and photographs, and people leave me tips to show appreciation for my free videos.

I have 3,300 subscribers and about 20 paying customers a week. These interactions can take me from 10 minutes to a few hours.

Being an on-call, virtual girlfriend-for-hire can be exhausting

I'm required to remember details about repeat clients and come up with exciting fantasies to keep them happy. The emotional labor of this kind of work is frequently overlooked but often is the hardest part of the job.

After doing this for 14 years, I started to feel burned out. I would open my OnlyFans account and see a lot of requests but couldn't bring myself to meet the demand of customers who wanted my attention in such a vulnerable and intimate way.

I turned to AI tools to help me get my spark back and show up for my clients.

I started playing around with ChatGPT

I tested the free version of ChatGPT in the spring to see how it could help me formulate text responses to my clients about different fantasies.

I was hoping to use ChatGPT to help me come up with responses because sometimes thinking of what to say and making it thrilling can be exhausting. But I quickly learned that ChatGPT had limitations and wouldn't write about sex or other explicit content.

Instead, I'll ask ChatGPT to give me a PG version of a fantasy, and I'll add in the sexual aspects myself. For example, I'll ask ChatGPT to write a story about friends playing Dungeons & Dragons and then edit it to add sex scenes.

This cuts down my work by about 60%. I can easily write sex scenes, but crafting a narrative for my clients takes time and effort.

I use an app to improve the quality of my photos and videos

I take photos and record videos on my phone or computer, and I use HitPaw, an AI tool that enhances photos and videos and costs $90, to improve the quality of these assets.

If a client is buying a product from me, I want to ensure I'm giving them what they're paying for — attention to detail and high-quality photos or videos, which leads to more repeat clients.

When I don't have anything new to post, I'll go back and find photos that I took years ago. I run them through this tool to up the quality and then post or sell them.

I save a lot of time with an app that summarizes my paid Skype calls

One of my most popular services is Skype phone calls. People pay $200 for 10 minutes of sexy chatting or may give me $200 an hour for casual, nonexplicit chats. All my phone clients book multiple sessions, so we might spend hours chatting every month.

It's hard to remember every detail of our conversations, and I like to bring up stories or details when we talk again because it makes the client feel special when you ask about something they shared in previous chats.

I downloaded an AI app called Krisp, which generates a transcript and a summary of my Skype conversations. I refer to these notes before I chat with the client again as a refresher.

This tool costs me $9 a month. It not only saves me time but also helps me improve the quality of my work, which leads to more engagement from clients.

I use an AI tool to refer to details in real time

When clients book me for an hourlong call, the transcription of our conversation can be up to 20 pages. To recall details fast, I use an AI tool called AskYourPDF, which takes my call transcriptions and provides me with a real-time chatbot. I can ask it about what's in the conversations.

For example, if I'm chatting with a client and want to remember where they went on vacation, I can ask the tool and it will instantly scan the transcription and tell me the answer.

Being wildly intimate with a person, especially online, can require so much mental energy. Some days, I'm not feeling 100% into it, and I don't want it to show. With the help of these tools, I've been able to work with more clients and give them the thrill they're paying for.