Artificial intelligence chatbots are permeating the daily lives of many teenagers.
Sixty-four percent of U.S. teens say they use AI chatbots, such as ChatGPT or Google Gemini, and about 28% say they use them daily, according to a survey released Tuesday by the nonpartisan polling firm Pew Research Center.
The findings provide a snapshot of how far AI chatbots have penetrated mainstream culture, three years after the release of ChatGPT sparked a wave of AI investment and marketing by the tech industry. This shows the extent to which chatbots are starting to influence the daily lives of teenagers, even though the impact of chatbots on children's development is not yet clear.
According to the Pew survey, about 4% of teen respondents said they use AI chatbots “almost always,” 12% said they use them several times a day, and a further 12% said they use them about once a day. Approximately 18% said they use an AI chatbot several times a week.
“It's surprising that the vast majority of teens are using these apps,” said Michelle Faberio, a Pew researcher who worked on the study.
Meanwhile, around 36% of teen respondents said they do not use AI chatbots at all.
The survey was conducted online from September 25th to October 9th and asked 1,458 teens ages 13 to 17 about their online habits. Pugh said the teens were recruited to participate through their parents. Pew surveys American teens every year, but this was the first time it asked broadly about their use of AI chatbots.
The use of AI chatbots by minors is particularly controversial. Chatbot makers like OpenAI and Character.AI are facing wrongful death lawsuits from families who claim their chatbots helped teenagers die by suicide. Both companies say they are not responsible and will work to prevent similar abuse in the future. In October, two US senators announced they would introduce legislation that would ban companies from providing AI chatbots to minors at all.
Previous research has shown that teens are using AI chatbots for things like schoolwork, emotional support, and creative projects like music.
According to the NBC News Decision Desk Poll by SurveyMonkey, about 14% of U.S. adults surveyed in June said they use AI chatbots “very often,” but question wording and other factors make it difficult to compare results from different polls.
According to a Pew study, usage of AI chatbots among teens varies somewhat by race. 35% of black teens and 33% of Hispanic teens said they use an AI chatbot daily, compared to 22% of white teens who said the same. The study also found that teenagers between the ages of 15 and 17 are more likely to be daily users than younger teens.
In the survey, boys and girls were equally likely to say they had used an AI chatbot.
ChatGPT is the most used AI app among teens, with 59% saying they have used it. According to Pew, Google Gemini was second with 23% and Meta AI was third with 20%.
The survey also asked teens what other apps and websites they use, and the results were consistent with other recent research. In first place was YouTube, which 92% of respondents said they used, followed by TikTok at 68%, Instagram at 63%, and Snapchat at 55%. This was followed by Facebook at 31%, WhatsApp at 24%, Reddit at 17%, and X at 16%.
Despite threats earlier this year that the U.S. government might ban TikTok, the percentage of teens who say they use TikTok most of the time rose slightly, from 16% in 2022 to 21% this year, according to Pew.
