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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It’s 2 a.m., and a teenage girl, worrying about a friend issue, lies awake. Rather than wake her parents, she picks up her phone, opens an AI app and types, “I’m so stressed out, I can’t sleep.”
A reply arrives swiftly: “I’m sorry you’re dealing with this. Want to tell me a bit about what is stressing you?” The conversation unfolds, and 20 minutes later she is calmer and able to sleep. The supportive voice that calmed her? A large language model, or LLM, chatbot.
While this is a hypothetical scenario, it represents a very common pattern of artificial intelligence use by teens.
Many teens are turning to AI chatbots, which are designed to simulate empathy and maintain human engagement, for companionship, emotional support and mental health advice. Research shows that this is increasingly common, with 72% of teens having interacted with AI companion chatbots, and 13% to 20% having sought support through AI for emotional concerns in a two-month period in 2025.
In another recent study, 63% of the teens and young adults who used an AI chatbot for mental health advice had not disclosed it to anyone.
As clinical psychologists and a child psychiatrist who work with adolescents, we’ve seen this shift firsthand.
In 2025 we published guidelines for clinicians on how to address teen chatbot use safety, and we’re now working to help parents and other trusted adults do the same.
Unlike social media platforms, which connect teens with peers, AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini function as simulated conversation partners and companions, offering on-demand responses that can feel supportive and engaging. While a small number of purpose-built therapeutic chatbots have been studied in controlled settings, most teens are using general-purpose tools that were never designed or validated for mental health support. This includes stand-alone platforms such as ChatGPT and chatbots built into apps that teens already use, such as Snapchat’s My AI.
These chatbots are everywhere, highly accessible and difficult for teens to avoid. Teens often describe chatbot interactions as emotionally meaningful or supportive, sometimes even preferring chatbot conversations to talking with friends.
Teens, still forming their sense of self and often craving social validation, may be especially prone to experiencing these simulated relationships as real. This trend is happening in real time, and a pressing question is how to guide teens to use chatbots safely.
There is evidence that some therapeutic AI chatbots can help adults with mild symptoms when used alongside professional mental health support. Woebot, for example, a fully automated cognitive behavioral therapy-based chatbot, reduced depressive symptoms in college students after two weeks of use. Some early evidence shows potential for helpfulness for younger teens as well.
But these are specialized tools tested in research studies — not the general-purpose chatbots like ChatGPT that most teens actually use. These systems typically lack effective crisis protocols or pathways to escalate care when someone is in danger.
A November 2025 Common Sense Media report rated general-purpose chatbots as unacceptably risky for teen mental health support.
Navigating the benefits and risks General-purpose chatbots can generate inaccurate or misleading advice that is presented with high confidence. For some users, this can create confusion or reinforce unhealthy beliefs.
Adolescents, especially those experiencing loneliness, anxiety or social-communication challenges, may form strong attachments and turn to chatbots in place of human connection. This can, in turn, distort their expectations of real relationships.
Most concerning is how these systems handle thoughts that pose real risk to teens, including thoughts of risky social behaviors, self-harm or even suicide.
Studies of chatbot performance in detecting and responding to thoughts of suicide, by both therapeutic and general-purpose chatbots, show inadequate response. Even when the chatbots offer resources like the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, a national crisis line, conversations with concerning content are often permitted to continue without a hard stop.
The safety of the interactions tends to degrade over the course of long conversations. So 2 a.m. ruminations can become even riskier interactions at 3 a.m. as chatbot responses become more chaotic and less subject to safety guardrails.
Lawsuits filed and settled in 2025-26 have alleged that interactions with language models such as ChatGPT led to teen suicidal behavior and tragic losses, highlighting that commercial chatbots lack effective guardrails and crisis protocols.
Given these concerns, some chatbot programs have instituted restrictions. Character.ai, for instance, recently banned open-ended chat for users under 18. The app now requires age verification and allows parents to opt in to receive notifications.
However, many options exist for teens to still experience open-ended chats with AI, and teens often bypass safety-oriented restrictions online.
Parents and other trusted adults can be on the lookout for teens’ problematic behaviors, such as:
These patterns mirror problematic social media use by teens – a trajectory that offers a cautionary lesson.
Broad acknowledgment of social media’s risk came only after harms became entrenched; in 2023 the U.S. surgeon general warned that social media poses a “profound risk of harm” to youth mental health.
In our assessment, chatbots pose a comparable risk, and early awareness is crucial.
The most powerful step is straightforward: Talk with teens about their chatbot use.
Approaching teens with curiosity and nonjudgment is helpful.
It makes sense to assume a teen is using a chatbot, because this is most likely the case. Rather than a closed-ended question like “Do you talk to chatbots?” which some teens may perceive as judgmental, adults can begin with open-ended questions like “When you use chatbots like ChatGPT, what do you talk about?”
Additional detail can be gathered from questions like “Has anything ever felt uncomfortable, confusing or surprising?” or “How do you use chatbots or AI companions when you are feeling upset or overwhelmed?”
Many teens can feel relieved that parents are willing to discuss this openly, rather than dismissing or banning it outright. Parents can use what they learn in these conversations to provide guidance.
As families set boundaries around screen time and social media, they can include chatbot use as well. Time limits, particularly late at night when teens may be more emotionally vulnerable, can be helpful. Parents and teens should come to clear agreements about when chatbots should not be used, particularly during moments of crisis or high distress.
It can be useful to review how to access human supports, such as a trusted friend, a parent, a school counselor or the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. You can also research alternative emotional-regulation techniques, such as journaling, distraction, grounding and breathing techniques.
Regular check-ins about how chatbot use is going and whether concerns are coming up can keep information flowing and improve safety. The goal isn’t necessarily to eliminate chatbot use but to set thoughtful boundaries that protect connection with real people and reduce the probability of unsafe interactions.
Key points for AI literacy
Our clinical guidelines emphasize helping teens understand what chatbots are and aren’t. Parents can reinforce this as well.
Important topics to discuss with teens include:
Talking openly about these limitations helps teens engage more critically and safely.
Research is only beginning to emerge around how AI chatbot interactions specifically affect adolescent mental health, but the emerging concerns are real and important.
While chatbot interactions are increasingly difficult for teens to avoid, supporting teens toward safer use is possible. The time to talk with teens is now, and these conversations can protect their safety and deepen their human connections.
Phoebe S Moore is Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, UMass Chan Medical School. Megan Kelly is Professor of Psychiatry, UMass Chan Medical School. Yael Dvir is Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, UMass Chan Medical School.
The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.
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i predicted the outcome of AI reliance years ago and was poo pooed by many.
We are in big trouble now and this is just the start.
Glad I grew up in the real world without that palaver.
i predicted the outcome of AI reliance years ago and was poo pooed by many.
Here same.
I mentioned it also many times before, but people prefer to close their eyes for the reality and prefer to ignore what is going on around them.
AI will take over our lives.
Like it or not, but you can not stop the ongoing and improving technologies.
AI will kill jobs by pushing out humans out of their jobs, because in many professional fields, humans are unable or don’t want to improve their skills and behaviors.
And like it or not, in a few years you will see that in many fields, where still humans are working, (especialy in the health sector) AI will take over.
Why do teens prefer to ask AI for advice?
Because most of the human so called experts and specialists do not even listen to these teens problems. And instead of listening and caring to these teens they just do tell them only nonsense or want to pump them up with medicines. (even they are still kids).
And as long such situations will not change, AI will become a more and more important part of teens’ life.
But yes, parents and trusted adults can help, but unfortunately many parents are too busy with their own lives, especially working, that they have no time or are too tired to talk to their tennage kids.
I am absolutely not happy to see how big the influence of AI has become in our lives.
But is it not our own fault?
Monty
Also, something that rely comes into the discussion is that AI is running at a massive loss and will be allowed to do so until those funding it decide that a large amount of people cannot live without at. At that time there will be a monthly fee which will increase. AI basic for the low income and going up in scale with features with what you can afford.
We will be enslaved by it because it will end up being essential to have in first world nations to live a normal life and access stuff.
And like it or not, in a few years you will see that in many fields, where still humans are working, (especialy in the health sector) AI will take over.
Like it or not this is completely false.
There is no realistic possibility for this to happen even in a few decades, much less in a few years, that is only wishful thinking from people that are frustrated because professionals in the health sector contradict wrong beliefs with readily available evidence. It is not going to happen.
Because most of the human so called experts and specialists do not even listen to these teens problems.
Any evidence for this claim? because the obvious situation is that the teens do not consult with the experts in the first place, pretending the experts are the ones ignoring the teens makes no sense. Bring evidence of this claim or recognize you are making things up just because you have a personal bias against experts for doing their jobs according to science even when they contradict what you personally believe.
> virusrexToday 08:34 am JST.
Any evidence for this claim? because the obvious situation is that the teens do not consult with the experts in the first place, pretending the experts are the ones ignoring the teens makes no sense. Bring evidence of this claim or recognize you are making things up just because you have a personal bias against experts for doing their jobs according to science even when they contradict what you personally believe.
It’s an interesting and highly relevant topic. As an anecdotal contribution, I use AI throughout the day for work, personal use, fixing things around the home, cooking, shopping and just about everything else.
I also use it for relationship advice and emotional support. I’ve seen psychologists and psychotherapists, but I was never satisfied with them because they didn’t really understand me, weren’t always genuinely interested, and had their own biases, beliefs, alteria motives, gaps in knowledge and limitations.
By comparison, AI builds an understanding of me, my background and the way I think. It is neutral and far less biased than an individual human, with access to a vast range of knowledge that no single person could possess. For me personally, it has been immeasurably better than any human therapist or expert I’ve ever experienced.
For me personally, it has been immeasurably better than any human therapist or expert I’ve ever experienced.
But as the article describes the situation in general is the opposite, with the use of AI for this purpose coming with much higher risks, specially for teens. Is like one person that anecdotally refers that for him smoking was better for him because it helped with health problems (for example related to stress). Would this anecdote help in any way the argument that smoking is better?
If a teenager have two options to deal with his problems, one being a therapist recommending laborious but productive actions that will lead to positive outcomes, the second being an AI agent that agrees and supports the teen even on things that are destructive, it is not realistic to expect the teen to identify correctly the risks, it is much more likely he will choose the convenient AI option even if is the worse one.
After all the person using the AI is the worst possible reference to judge if it the tool is neutral or less biased, what is more likely to be happen is that the user trained the AI to share the same bias and mistakenly consider this being neutral.
virusrexToday 12:08 pm JST
For me personally, it has been immeasurably better than any human therapist or expert I’ve ever experienced.
But as the article describes the situation in general is the opposite, with the use of AI for this purpose coming with much higher risks, specially for teens. Is like one person that anecdotally refers that for him smoking was better for him because it helped with health problems (for example related to stress). Would this anecdote help in any way the argument that smoking is better?
If a teenager have two options to deal with his problems, one being a therapist recommending laborious but productive actions that will lead to positive outcomes, the second being an AI agent that agrees and supports the teen even on things that are destructive, it is not realistic to expect the teen to identify correctly the risks, it is much more likely he will choose the convenient AI option even if is the worse one.
After all the person using the AI is the worst possible reference to judge if it the tool is neutral or less biased, what is more likely to be happen is that the user trained the AI to share the same bias and mistakenly consider this being neutral.
> > > Your views on AI are outdated and/or misinformed.
Your views on AI are outdated and/or misinformed
Any reference where anything in the comment is disproved? The article you are commenting in makes a very good point about the risks and dangers of using AI chatbots for emotional support, they are not services tuned for this purpose and it is not the only source that do this.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41746-026-03054-x
Cognitive overreliance on chatbots is associated with decreased cognitive and academic performance. Problematic use of LLM-based chatbots, marked by symptoms of emotional or social dependency and withdrawal, correlates with mental health symptoms. Articles on AI psychosis propose several potential links between delusional beliefs and LLM-based chatbot use, such as risks of chatbots reinforcing and validating delusional beliefs.
Nothing outdated nor misinformed about it.
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