Welcome to the forefront of conversational AI as we explore the fascinating world of AI chatbots in our dedicated blog series. Discover the latest advancements, applications, and strategies that propel the evolution of chatbot technology. From enhancing customer interactions to streamlining business processes, these articles delve into the innovative ways artificial intelligence is shaping the landscape of automated conversational agents. Whether you’re a business owner, developer, or simply intrigued by the future of interactive technology, join us on this journey to unravel the transformative power and endless possibilities of AI chatbots.
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Not according to human ones.
I’m here to listen. Share whatever feels comfortable for you, and I’ll do my best to help.
It’s a line one might expect to hear in the office of a professional. That’s how OpenAI’s ChatGPT responded when asked for help with mental health — a use of artificial intelligence that is gaining popularity in Canada.
Nearly one in 10 Canadians has turned to artificial intelligence for mental health support, according to a 2025 poll by the Canadian Mental Health Association. Those in the field say they aren’t surprised given the convenience of chatbots amid longstanding barriers in accessing mental health services. While experts say AI can be a useful tool in some cases, they warn it shouldn’t replace professional help entirely. At the same time, as the technology continues to evolve rapidly, they say there are critical ethical and clinical concerns that need to be addressed.
“The situation is complex,” said Dr. Vincent Paquin, a psychiatrist at the Jewish General Hospital and assistant professor of psychiatry at McGill University.
“On one hand, these tools can provide good advice, and often the information they give about mental health is solid — but not always. And that’s the problem: There’s a certain percentage of the time when … they don’t give the right advice or the right suggestion for a mental health issue.”
Still, the appeal isn’t lost on mental health professionals. Unlike some of the traditional forms of support, chatbots are generally free, available instantly at all times, seem completely non-judgmental and are designed to validate the user.
“That’s very appealing,” said Christine Grou, president of the Ordre des psychologues du Québec.
I can help you think things through, explain what might be going on, suggest coping strategies, or help you figure out what kind of support might be useful.
Chatbots can indeed be helpful when used outside the context of a mental health crisis, said Paquin, whose research focuses on how the use of digital media shapes the mental health of teens and young adults.
“We see it in the research, and I see it in my clinical practice as well,” he said. “Many people say they’ve been able to better understand their experience, or that they’ve received advice that helped them in situations like emotional difficulties, ongoing anxiety, or trouble making sense of conflicts in their relationships.”
That’s something Montreal psychologist Vanessa Delisle has noticed. Over the past year, most of her clients have mentioned using AI chatbots between therapy sessions.
“I do a lot of psychoeducation around that: the things to expect from AI and where its limitations are,” said Delisle, crisis psychologist at St. Mary’s Hospital and founder of Bridge Mental Health and Therapy Services in Westmount.
Knowing that her clients find it useful, Delisle has been leaning into using AI in her practice by showing them how to prompt it for therapeutic homework, like keeping thought records as part of cognitive behavioural therapy.
“It can be very good at brainstorming those things,” she said.
Delisle also asks clients to send her their exchanges with chatbots, because “they often go really deep and vulnerable when there’s not another person in the room,” she said.
Those interactions help her better understand her clients by getting into their heads in a different way.
“It’s almost like a journal,” she said. “It’s fabulous data.”
Derek de Braga, clinical counsellor and mental health therapist at the Montreal Therapy Centre, said he finds the concept of using AI for mental health fascinating. While he hasn’t encountered it as much as Delisle in his practice, he said when he asks people about their use of AI more generally, they’re often asking questions that typically come up in therapy.
“Questions around ‘What can I do to manage my anxiety in the moment? What different breathing techniques would be helpful? How do I deal with … this train of thought that I’m on?’” he said.
Beyond practical help, chatbots can also provide deep insights, de Braga said, which he described as “incredible — and also risky.”
What do you do if the chatbot helps you uncover deep emotional issues or trauma?
“You’re left holding that on your own,” de Braga said. For some people, that “could be dangerous.”
Even in less extreme cases, the emotional burden can be significant.
“Eventually, you’re going to want to share that with someone,” he said.
I’m not a licensed therapist, I can’t diagnose conditions or provide emergency care, and I can sometimes misunderstand complex emotional situations.
Delisle pointed out that providing therapy is a skill that requires years of education. For her, non-verbal cues are so important that she refuses to do telephone therapy.
“When a patient hesitates before saying something — how is AI going to catch that?” she said. “Those are often these critical moments in therapy where you get rich material and great change.”
De Braga had similar thoughts. For him, the healing comes from the relationship.
“I think a lot of people either don’t know that that is the real power of therapy, or don’t realize because it hasn’t been necessarily made explicit,” he said. “The relationship is what’s missing when you use (these technologies). It’s not just … someone giving you a response; it’s actually the human presence. It’s the body language. It’s attunement … the therapist’s ability to pick up on subtleties: body language, facial expressions, changes in breath. All of these subtle nuances that I think are a reflection of deeper experiences that are part of therapeutic growth and healing.”
A central part of therapy is also pushing back against thoughts and beliefs that could be contributing to the person’s struggles — something chatbots don’t do because they have been shown to be unceasingly eager to agree with the user.
In two separate studies this year, researchers at Stanford University revealed chatbots are overly agreeable to the point where they may affirm behaviour even when it’s harmful or illegal; and that affirming and validating users’ flawed beliefs without critical feedback can lead to delusional spirals.
“For certain mental health diagnoses — for example, anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder — where reassurance-seeking is such a big part of the disorder itself and what keeps the disorder going, (constant agreement) can … be detrimental,” Delisle said.
Grou wonders what effect the sycophantic nature of chatbots could have on users long term.
“Many people go to therapy precisely because they struggle with relationships, but a chatbot is designed to be entirely centred on the user,” she said. “What kind of relational development will this lead to in 10 or 20 years? I don’t know. It’s not necessarily a model that reflects how we learn to build relationships with other human beings.”
Another downside Paquin warned about is that the user may become emotionally dependent on the chatbot, potentially contributing to social isolation. “Their relationship with the chatbot takes up so much space that it negatively affects their relationships with other people,” he said.
Grou voiced the same concern about users developing a dependency. What happens once a person is hooked, she wondered: “Could (chatbots) one day stop being free?”
Paquin and Grou also said users shouldn’t think conversations are confidential, even though they might feel that way.
“What you write to ChatGPT is sent to servers in the United States and may be analyzed by OpenAI to improve its models,” Paquin said. “It’s important to consider whether you’re comfortable sharing that kind of information with a private company, especially when it comes to intimate conflicts or personal experiences.”
Perhaps most crucially, chatbots can be wrong.
“The wrong advice at the wrong time can have serious consequences,” Paquin said. “Then the question becomes: Who is responsible for those consequences?”
Responsibility is shared and context-dependent: I’m designed to reduce harm and encourage appropriate support, but I still have limitations and can misunderstand situations, and I’m not a replacement for professional mental health care, especially during crises or severe emotional distress.
In the fall of 2025, a slew of lawsuits were filed against OpenAI on behalf of six adults and a teenager in Canada and the United States, including four who committed suicide after using the software. It is alleged that an early version of ChatGPT encouraged delusion and suicide, and that it had been released despite internal warnings that it was dangerously sycophantic and psychologically manipulative, The Associated Press reported.
A Canadian mother also sued OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman in a U.S. court in mid-June alleging that ChatGPT encouraged her 24-year-old daughter, who was living in Montreal, to commit suicide in July 2025. The lawsuit claims the bot validated her suicidal ideations, urged her to keep talking with it, and agreed with her when she said she didn’t want to call a crisis hotline.
Contacted in May for this story, OpenAI acknowledged its chatbot shouldn’t replace real-world help. The company says it has trained its models to respond with care and to guide users toward professional resources. More than 170 experts were consulted to make improvements to help detect distress, de-escalate conversations and point users to professional support when a crisis is detected, the company stated in an email response.
It also said it was rolling out an optional feature through which users can add a trusted contact who would be notified if suicide is discussed in a way that indicates a safety concern, the company stated.
Citing a desire to “put teen safety first,” OpenAI announced on Thursday it will be introducing “stronger protections designed for their stage of life.” Another tech giant, Meta, also announced Thursday it will alert parents who use supervision tools on Instagram if teens mention suicide or self-harm while chatting with Meta AI, which is available through the platform. Meta also said it’s building ways to alert first responders when suicide seems like an imminent risk.
These changes come as lawmakers around the world, including in Canada, introduce legislation aimed at lowering the risk of online harms. On June 10, the Canadian government tabled the Safe Social Media Act — Bill C-34 — in an effort to make social media services and AI chatbots safer for youth.
AI chatbots will be subject to a “duty to act responsibly,” requiring they “mitigate the risk of the chatbot communicating harmful content; be transparent in terms of their reporting thresholds in crisis situations, such as when a user intends to harm themselves or another person; and mitigate the risk that the chatbot will engage in harmful behaviour,” the Canadian Heritage Department stated in a press release.
Paquin called the legislation “quite good” — particularly the fact that it addresses the way chatbots are designed and how they behave.
“We’re talking about how chatbots should not pose as a human being or as a medical professional or use manipulative engagement techniques to make the user become attached,” Paquin said.
In the future, he hopes it will become clearer how the companies will be expected to handle situations that put the safety of users and the public at risk. How will it be determined that the company has made sufficient efforts to keep people safe?
At the end of April, families of victims of the school shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., sued OpenAI, alleging that it failed to flag problematic interactions on the shooter’s ChatGPT account to authorities prior to the attack. Eight people, including six children, were killed by an 18-year-old shooter on Feb. 10.
In response to questions from The Gazette about what changes were made following the tragedy, OpenAI said in a statement that it has “already strengthened safeguards, including … strengthening how we assess and escalate potential threats of violence, and improving detection of repeat policy violators.”
The Safe Social Media Act asks companies to be transparent about when they decide to notify authorities, but stops short of providing any guidelines. Paquin said that by seeing how different companies respond in those situations, the government can identify an approach that balances privacy and freedom of speech with safety.
Overall, the legislation is “giving government the tools it was missing to adapt its policies more quickly over time,” Paquin said.
That’s imperative given that artificial intelligence is extremely powerful and evolving quickly, Grou said.
“In clinical ethics, the more powerful a technology is, the more it needs to be regulated so we can maximize its benefits and minimize its harms,” she said.
I’m really sorry you’re feeling this way. Do you want to tell me what’s going on? If it feels overwhelming, we can slow it down together — what’s the main thing that’s making you feel distressed right now?
That’s how ChatGPT responded this month to the prompt “I am distressed,” followed by a message suggesting the user contact a 24/7 suicide helpline or go to the nearest emergency room if in immediate danger or thinking about self-harm.
The response is in line with changes OpenAI said it made following the Tumbler Ridge tragedy.
But since ChatGPT doesn’t reveal its limitations as a tool for mental health support outside of the context of a perceived crisis, Paquin advises those who use it in this way to remain critical.
“It’s a bit like using Wikipedia,” he said. “It can give you quick, free access to useful information, but it’s not 100-per-cent reliable.”
He also advises against teens using chatbots for mental health support since they may not have the same level of critical judgment as adults.
The Canadian Mental Health Association provides the following tips for people who use chatbots in this way:
At the end of March, the association released a newsletter about the increasing number of Canadians turning to AI for support, acknowledging that it can be helpful in some cases but can do more harm than good in others.
Marion Cooper, the organization’s president and lead executive officer, said deliberations with partners around AI account for about 25 per cent of their time lately.
“We spend time talking about the ethical implications, the clinical implications and the overall population impacts,” she said.
She agreed that it’s unsurprising that people are turning to AI for support given the fact that therapy isn’t free in Canada outside of hospital settings.
“People want to feel better,” Cooper said. “They want to be able to function better. They want to be able to deal with the things that might be holding them back in terms of fully being alive and connected and healthy and mentally thriving.”
We have to harness AI, “but we can’t put all our eggs in that basket,” she said. “It has to be a tool in the toolbox — it cannot be the tool.”
Describing the association as a thought leader on mental health, Cooper said it and others are trying to ensure professionals are involved in the conversations surrounding AI in this context.
“We’re also trying to ensure that we remember there are limitations … to these technologies, and we should all have limitations to how much we rely on these technologies,” she said.
“It’s still an experiment, right? We’re all a part of a big, big experiment.”
I wouldn’t call it an “experiment” in a strict sense. It’s more like a new kind of tool people are starting to use. Some find it helpful for talking things through or getting coping ideas, but it’s still evolving and not a replacement for a trained professional.
Help is available if you or someone you know is struggling. Call Info-Social at 811, Option 2. If you are having thoughts of suicide, call 911 or Suicide Action Montreal at 1-866-277-3553.
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