Nearly 1 in 5 Young Americans Are Turning to AI for Mental Health Advice and Most Say It Helps. But Experts Are Worried

AI has become a mental health cruch for millions of young Americans.

Nearly 1 in 5 young Americans now turn to AI when they need mental health advice. More than 90 percent of them say the responses are helpful. However, scientists and mental health experts have not yet established whether the advice is actually safe or effective.

A new nationwide study found that 19.2 percent of US adolescents and young adults aged 12 to 21, which is about 8.2 million people, used an AI chatbot for mental health advice in 2025. This is a 13.1 percent increase from the previous year.

This data clearly shows that more and more young people who need mental health advice now prefer AI chatbots.

However, this “might be concerning because there is misinformation available through different AI models, which are not designed to provide mental health advice,” Hao Yu, one of the study authors and an associate professor at Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare Institute, told The Harvard Gazette.

In the past, AI mental health tools have already produced troubling responses in vulnerable situations. In some cases, chatbots have even advised users to commit self-harm and suicide.

“It’s true that tragedies like suicide attempts have happened when youth talked with AI about mental health issues. AI companies promised they would install guardrails, but there’s a lack of empirical evidence about how those promises are being kept,” Yu added.

Yet despite these concerns, young people are turning to AI in growing numbers. So what makes a chatbot so appealing when someone is struggling with their mental health?

Why people are choosing AI over people

The attraction is easy to see. A chatbot is available around the clock, does not require an appointment, and can feel easier to approach than a person. Not to mention, it’s much, much cheaper.

This matters in a US mental health setting where four in 10 teenagers who experienced a major depressive episode in the previous year reported not receiving mental health services.

“Our healthcare system has an acute shortage of psychiatrists, especially child psychiatrists, and only half of those with mental health needs actually receive mental health treatment,” Yu said.

Young people have also long used the internet to find mental health information because it is accessible, anonymous, and basically free. Chatbots take that one step further by turning a search into a conversation tailored to the user’s words.

The problem is that a chatbot can sound reassuring without necessarily being right.

×

Get smarter every day...

Stay ahead with ZME Science and subscribe.

Daily Newsletter
The science you need to know, every weekday.

Weekly Newsletter
A week in science, all in one place. Sends every Sunday.
No spam, ever. Unsubscribe anytime. Review our Privacy Policy.

Thank you! One more thing...

Please check your inbox and confirm your subscription.

“AI is patient, and AI is nice. It’s rare for AI to be harsh or become impatient,” Yu said. 

Moreover, among those who used AI for mental health advice, 63.3 percent had not told anyone about it.

“It may surprise some that we found the majority of youth using AI did not disclose their use to any adults, either parents or physicians,” Yu said.

According to researchers, this lack of disclosure can also create a blind spot. If a chatbot gives poor or misleading advice, parents and health professionals may never know that the conversation happened. 

A rapidly growing habit

To find out how widespread AI-assisted mental health advice has become, researchers surveyed 1,727 people aged 12 to 21 in November 2025. Of those, 1,009 completed the survey, which used RAND’s American Life Panel and was weighted to represent the US youth population. 

Participants were asked whether they had used AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, Google Gemini, My AI, Character.AI, and Meta AI. Those who had were then asked whether they had sought advice when feeling sad, angry, nervous, or stressed.

Overall, 19.2 percent said they had used AI for mental health advice. This represents a sharp rise from the team’s previous survey, which found 13.1 percent had done so in 2024. Among AI users, 42.8 percent sought mental health advice at least monthly. About 10.8 percent did so at least weekly, while 5.8 percent used AI daily or almost daily.

Use was more common among females and older youth. Around 25 percent of females reported using AI for mental health advice, while 24.1 percent of those aged 18 to 21 reported using it. The figure was also 27.7 percent among young people who had spoken with a physician about their mental health during the previous six months.

Interestingly, the survey data suggests that AI is now almost as common as professional counseling among young people in this survey. For instance, about 19.2 percent used AI for mental health advice, compared with 19.8 percent who received counseling from a mental health professional.

The reassuring number has a catch

At first glance, the study offers some good news. 91.7 percent of young people who used AI for mental health advice said the responses were somewhat or very helpful.

However, researchers did not test whether those responses were actually accurate or clinically appropriate.

General-purpose AI systems are designed to be conversational and agreeable, but in a mental health discussion, that can become a liability. A chatbot that constantly validates a user’s feelings may sometimes reinforce an unhealthy belief instead of challenging it.

RelatedPosts

AI eye checks can detect heart diseases in less than a minute
AI Reveals Nearly One Million Potential Antibiotics to Fight Drug-Resistant Superbugs
AI has a hidden water cost − here’s how to calculate yours
The future of AI voice is here: new AI has emotionally intelligent synthetic speech

“Most AI models try to be appealing and flattering as a way to keep their customers, and many people, especially youth, easily hooked,” Yu added. 

However, good mental health advice is not simply about making someone feel understood or telling them what they want to hear. It needs to be grounded in evidence-based clinical standards and, above all, be safe.

AI’s use for mental help will only increase

We live in a world where the family system is collapsing, people are becoming more social on the internet than in reality, healthcare costs are rising, and privacy is becoming a luxury. In such a scenario, Yu and his colleagues expect AI use among young people to keep rising.

“On one side, we have a rapid adoption of AI across different parts of our society. On the other, there is an increased prevalence of mental health issues among young people. Putting these two together makes it not so surprising when we see that youth are increasingly turning to AI for mental health advice,” Yu explained.

From the survey and what we see around, it is quite clear that young people have already made AI part of their mental health lives. Now the challenge is to make the technology worth the trust people are putting in it.

“The trend among youth is increasing. As a society, we have the responsibility to make sure that what they are receiving is accurate and helpful,” Yu said.

The researchers now plan to conduct follow-up surveys to track how this trend evolves and determine whether AI can become a genuinely safe and effective source of mental health support for young people.

The study is published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.