Interaction with AI companions and psychological well-being
Nature human behaviour, 2026
L4of 5
- Design
- Cross-sectional survey
- Risk of bias
- Some concerns
- Sample
- n = 1,131
- AI type
- Companion / social AI apps
- Outcomes
- Wellbeing, Social connection
Authors' conclusion
“For self-reported companionship usage, this association was stronger when interactions were intensive (β = -0.31; 95% CI, (-0.56, -0.06)) and highly disclosive (β = -0.38; 95% CI, (-0.63, -0.14)). These results suggest that the association between AI companionship and well-being is not uniform and depends on users' offline social environments and how chatbots are used.”Quoted verbatim from the abstract.
Draft grade. Level and risk of bias were assigned by our agent and await expert review. How we grade
Read the paper →DOI 10.1038/s41562-026-02516-2Related
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