Gen Z is often described as allergic to commitment. The label is catchy—and wrong. What this generation actually practices is something far more precise: emotional optionality. It is the habit of staying emotionally invested enough to feel something, but never so invested that leaving becomes costly. This isn’t a cultural quirk. It’s a learned behaviour and its influential teacher is artificial intelligence. For more than a decade, AI-driven systems have trained young people to live inside environments where nothing ever has to be final. 

Recommendation engines suggest the next video before the current one ends. Music apps queue alternatives endlessly. Dating platforms present faces as an infinite deck rather than finite encounters. Predictive systems complete thoughts before we sit with them. The lesson is minute but constant: don’t commit—keep your options open. That logic didn’t stay just on screens. It migrated into relationships.