A year after Ashley Madison suffered a very public data breach that exposed the personal details of more than 34,000 members, the self-described “married dating site for discreet encounters” has come clean about the use of chatbots that kept male users interested while giving the impression of a higher number of female users.

According to its latest press release, Avid Life Media, the company behind the website, hired independent forensic accounting investigators to look into "past business practices around bots", adding that it had discontinued their use since 2015.

Meanwhile, according to journalist Annalee Newitz, many male members have most likely been unwittingly engaging in conversation with one of the 70,000 chatbots or "engagers" she claims they created, based on examination of the website's source code.

The evidence suggests these bots encouraged men to buy credits on the website and convert them into paying members with the lure of an affair that would never materialise.