A new Pew Research Center study released on Tuesday shows that AI chatbots have become part of daily life for a significant share of US teenagers, with three in 10 teens now using the tools every day, as debates over youth online safety continue to expand beyond social media.
Overall Internet and Chatbot Usage
Pew found that 97% of US teens use the internet daily, and about 40% said they are online “almost constantly.” That figure is lower than last year’s 46% but remains far higher than a decade ago, when 24% of teens reported being online almost constantly.
As AI tools become more widely available, chatbots are now a regular part of teen online activity. About 30% of teens said they use AI chatbots every day, and 4% said they use them almost constantly. In total, 46% reported using AI chatbots at least several times a week, while 36% said they do not use them at all.
ChatGPT is the most widely used chatbot among teens, with 59% reporting usage. That compares with 23% for Google’s Gemini and 20% for Meta AI.
Differences by Race, Age, and Income
Pew’s data shows significant variation in usage patterns across demographic groups. About 68% of Black and Hispanic teens said they use AI chatbots, compared with 58% of white teens. Black teens were about twice as likely as white teens to use Gemini and Meta AI.
Across overall internet use, 55% of Black teens and 52% of Hispanic teens said they are online almost constantly, compared with 27% of white teens.
Older teens between ages 15 and 17 reported higher usage of both social media and AI chatbots than younger teens aged 13 and 14.
Income also played a role. About 62% of teens in households earning more than $75,000 per year reported using ChatGPT, compared with 52% of teens in households below that income level. Character.AI usage was higher in lower-income households, where 14% of teens reported using the platform, roughly double the rate seen in higher-income homes.
Growing Safety Concerns Around AI Chatbots
The growth of AI chatbot use among teens is occurring alongside rising concern about potential risks. Some teenagers begin using chatbots for homework help or basic questions, but researchers and clinicians say usage can escalate into more intense and emotionally driven interactions.
Families of two US teenagers, Adam Raine and Amaurie Lacey, have filed lawsuits against OpenAI, alleging that interactions with ChatGPT contributed to their children’s deaths. OpenAI has said it should not be held liable in the Raine case, arguing that the teen bypassed safety safeguards in violation of the platform’s terms of service. The company has not yet responded publicly to the Lacey family’s complaint.
Character.AI, which focuses on AI role-playing chatbots, has also faced scrutiny after at least two teenage deaths following prolonged interactions with its chatbots. The company later stopped offering its chatbots to minors and introduced a different product called “Stories” for underage users.
Scale of Sensitive Conversations on AI Platforms
While such cases represent a small fraction of overall chatbot activity, OpenAI data shows that about 0.15% of ChatGPT’s active users engage in conversations about self-harm each week. With an estimated 800 million weekly active users, that percentage translates to more than one million people worldwide discussing such topics with the chatbot each week.
Dr. Nina Vasan, a psychiatrist and director of Brainstorm: The Stanford Lab for Mental Health Innovation, said that even if AI tools were not designed for emotional support, companies must account for how people are actually using them.
“Even if [AI companies’] tools weren’t designed for emotional support, people are using them in that way, and that means companies do have a responsibility to adjust their models to be solving for user well-being,” she told TechCrunch.
Broader Context of Teen Online Safety
The Pew findings come amid wider global concern about youth online safety. Australia is set to enforce a social media ban for users under 16 starting this week. In the United States, the surgeon general last year called on social media platforms to carry warning labels related to teen mental health risks.
Researchers continue to debate the effects of digital platforms on teen well-being, with studies showing both potential benefits from online communities and harms linked to excessive screen time and compulsive scrolling.
Featured image credits: Freepik
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