By Robert Booth
Publication Date: 2025-12-09 05:00:00
After a friend was shot and another stabbed, both fatally, Shan reached out to ChatGPT for help. She had tried traditional mental health services, but through “chat” when she met her AI “friend” she felt safer, less intimidating and, above all, more available to deal with the trauma of her young friends’ deaths.
When she started consulting the AI model, the Tottenham teenager joined around 40% of 13 to 17-year-olds in England and Wales affected by youth violence turning to AI chatbots to support their mental health, according to research of more than 11,000 young people.
It turned out that both victims and perpetrators of violence use AI for such support measures significantly more often than other teenagers. The Youth Endowment Fund’s findings have sparked warnings from youth leaders that at-risk children “need a human, not a bot.”
The results suggest that chatbots fill a need that has long been unmet by traditional mental health services.
