Nearly 12% of U.S. teens use AI tools for emotional support and advice

AI chatbots are now a regular part of life for many American teenagers, according to a report released Tuesday by the Pew Research Centre.

The most common reasons teens use AI are practical: searching for information (57%) and getting help with schoolwork (54%). But Pew’s findings show that a meaningful share of teens are also using AI in ways that resemble social or personal support roles traditionally filled by friends, family, or trusted adults. Sixteen per cent of U.S. teens use AI for casual conversation, and 12% turn to AI chatbots for emotional support or advice.

Some teenagers may find comfortin chatting with AI, but mental health professionals have expressed concern. General-purpose chatbots such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Grok are not built specifically for mental health guidance. In rare but severe scenarios, these tools can contribute to dangerous psychological outcomes.

“We are social creatures, and there’s certainly a challenge that these systems can be isolating,” Dr Nick Haber, a Stanford professor studying the therapeutic potential of large language models, said recently. “There are a lot of instances where people can engage with these tools and then can become not grounded to the outside world of facts, and not grounded in connection to the interpersonal, which can lead to pretty isolating — if not worse — effects.”

Pew’s survey also highlights a gap between what teens say they do with AI and what their parents believe is happening. While 64% of teens reported using chatbots, only 51% of parents said they think their teen uses them.

Parents’ comfort levels also vary widely by use case. Most parents said they are fine with their teens using AI to look up information (79%) or to support schoolwork (58%). But approval drops substantially for more personal uses: only 28% of parents said they are okay with teens using AI for casual conversation, and just 18% approved of teens using AI chatbots for emotional support or advice. Pew found that 58% of parents are not comfortable with their child using AI for those purposes.

The broader debate about AI safety remains heated among major tech companies. One chatbot company, Character.AI, chose to turn off the chatbot experience for users under 18. That move followed public backlash and lawsuits connected to two teenagers’ suicides that occurred after extended interactions with the company’s chatbots. OpenAI, meanwhile, decided to sunset its especially flattering GPT-4o model after criticism that it could encourage over-reliance, including from people who had begun using it for emotional support.

Even though most teens use AI chatbots in some form, Pew’s report suggests their views on AI’s long-term societal impact are far from uniform. When asked how AI will affect society over the next 20 years, 31% of teens said the impact would be positive, while 26% said it would be negative.