1 in 3 Britons Use AI for Emotional Support, Companionship, Social Interaction: Study

Researchers also studied a Reddit forum dedicated to discussing AI companions, finding that users reported symptoms of withdrawal during service outages.

A cellphone screen displays an AI logo on May 16, 2025, in this photo illustration. Oleksii Pydsosonnii /The Epoch Times

One-third of people in the UK are using artificial intelligence (AI) for emotional support, companionship, and social interaction, according to a report from a government-backed institute published on Dec. 18.

The AI Security Institute (AISI) said that it found in its survey of 2,028 people that 33 percent had used AI for “emotional purposes”—a proportion that the report’s authors called a “substantial minority.”

Overall, 8 percent were using AI for support on a weekly basis, with 4 percent using it daily. Sixty-seven percent said they never used AI for those needs.

In a blog post summarizing its key findings, AISI said that many of the societal impacts of AI “are already here,” noting that its research “suggests that some users are beginning to form emotional dependencies on AI models.”

The most popular type of AI used were general purpose AI assistants such as ChatGPT (58 percent), followed by voice assistants such as Alexa (26 percent). AI chatbots in apps or video games were the next most popular (9 percent), then AI companions specifically designed for companionship, such as CharacterAI (5 percent), and other types of AI (2 percent).

The findings were included in the AISI’s first “Frontier AI Trends Report,” which conducted evaluations of more than 30 AI models across domains such as chemistry, cybersecurity, and autonomy, including looking at the technology’s wider social impact.

AI Withdrawal

AISI, a research organization within the UK government’s Department of Science, Innovation, and Technology, said that to explore how this increased usage in AI was affecting people’s emotions, it studied the online activity of users of a Reddit forum dedicated to discussing AI companions.

“We saw significant spikes in negative posts during service outages,” researchers stated in the report, noting that one such outage produced “a surge in posting over 30 times larger than the average number of posts per hour.”

The authors of the report stated: “We also found that large numbers of posts made during the outages self-describe symptoms of withdrawal (such as anxiety, depression, and restlessness) and behaviour changes (such as sleep disruption or neglecting responsibilities)—as well as requests for support from other users.

“People are increasingly turning to AI systems for emotional support or social interaction.

“While many users report positive experiences, recent high-profile cases of harm underline the need for research into this area, including the conditions under which harm could occur, and the safeguards that could enable beneficial use.”

Young People Using AI

The report is joining a growing body of studies pointing to an increased use of AI for some kind of emotional support.

This includes reports highlighting that young people are turning to AI for mental health advice.

A Dec. 9 study from the Youth Endowment Fund found that 25 percent of 13- to 17-year-olds in England and Wales have used AI chatbots for mental health advice and support—more frequently used than mental health or well-being websites (22 percent), chat groups and forums (18 percent), or mental health apps (15 percent).

Similarly, in the United States, researchers from RAND, the Brown University School of Public Health, and Harvard found that young Americans are turning to chatbots for mental health advice.

Their study, published on Nov. 7, found that more than one in eight (13.1 percent) of 12- to 21-year-olds reported using chatbots for mental health advice, with higher rates among young adults aged 18 to 21 years old (22.2 percent).