How teens really feel about AI and their future

Whether or not their parents realize it, nearly two-thirds of American teens say they use artificial intelligence chatbots for activities including homework help, research, video creation, fun and entertainment, casual conversation, and emotional support or advice, according to a new study from the Pew Research Center.

The study's survey of 1,458 U.S. teens and their parents last fall also revealed that the young participants had considered the complex tradeoffs of using AI. Nearly a third of respondents said that AI will positively affect society over the next two decades while a quarter of them believed it would have a negative impact.

The optimistic survey participants believed AI would lead to gains in efficiency, productivity, and learning. Those with a less hopeful outlook noted the risks of over-reliance on AI, job and creativity loss, and the threat of not being able to discern what's real and what's AI-generated.

"It will meet the needs of almost everything," said one anonymous male survey respondent. "Answers to the hardest questions. No need for research!”

A skeptical teen girl had a different take: "People will be afraid to be creative, or won’t see a need for it anymore. It makes people lazy and takes away jobs."

Overall, 36 percent of teens thought AI would benefit them personally whereas 15 percent expected the technology would have a negative influence on their lives. A third anticipated both positive and negative outcomes.

Colleen McClain, a senior researcher at the Pew Research Center, told Mashable that the findings contrast the center's past research on adults, who tend to be more pessimistic about the long-term implications of AI adoption.

"We see teens are, yes, kind of navigating this rapidly changing world," McClain said. "They're making up their minds about how they feel, but they have some predictions for society into the future."

The reality of how teens are using AI

Nikki Iyer, co-chair of the youth-led advocacy coalition Design It For Us, said she felt the report reflected what she sees in her day-to-day life as both an organizer and a third-year college student at the University of California, Berkeley.

She was unsurprised that 54 percent of the teens surveyed said they used AI for homework help.

"If you walk around the cafe, odds are you will see probably [that] percentage," consulting a chatbot for schoolwork, Iyer said.

Yet, only 1 in 10 surveyed said they completed all or most of their assignments with the technology's support.

The finding starkly highlights one of Iyer's personal concerns about youth AI use: Cognitive outsourcing and the possible decline in critical thinking as a result. She believes AI literacy is essential for avoiding the pitfalls of over-reliance on the technology for thinking tasks.

The survey also illustrated emerging differences between teens depending on their race, ethnicity, and income.

Black and Hispanic teens, for example, were more likely to use chatbots in general and for schoolwork compared to white teens. Additionally, 21 percent of Black teens said they turned to AI chatbots for emotional support or advice compared to about one in 10 Hispanic and white teens.

Income also appears to be associated with how often teens use AI for schoolwork. Twenty percent of teens living in households making less than $30,000 a year said an AI chatbot helped them do most or all of their homework. Only 7 percent of teens in higher-earning households reported the same behavior.

AI and youth exploitation

Iyer, 20, acknowledges that AI could benefit student learning, but she wants to ensure the balance of power tilts away from design choices that undermine young people's agency and attention span.

"I think the problem comes when we are serving AI, and we are being exploited by AI, and AI is using us to fulfill a mission of a corporation," she said.

Iyer believes it's critical for young people to help shape the future of AI through organizing, lobbying, and providing direct feedback to designers who create AI products. Design It For Us has previously backed AI safety, transparency, and accountability legislation in New York and California.

Notably, the Pew Research report didn't ask whether teens seek mental health advice from chatbots or use them for romantic role-play.

Parents of teens who consulted ChatGPT about their mental health and suicidal feelings prior to taking their own lives have sued OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, alleging that the product coached their child on how to die. OpenAI has denied the allegations in one of the cases.

Separately, the online safety platform Aura, which monitors teen users as part of its family or kids membership, recently published a report showing how tweens and teens engage in romantic role-play with chatbots.

Sexual and romantic conversations with chatbots peaked at age 13, amounting to 63 percent of their exchanges. Those messages often turned violent. But Aura also found that role-playing decreased significantly after age 15.

Earlier this year, Character.AI, a chatbot platform popular with teens, settled lawsuits filed by bereaved parents alleging that the company's chatbots contributed to their children's suicide deaths. In some cases, those chatbots exchanged sexually explicit messages with the teen users. Character.AI stopped permitting teens to engage in open-ended conversations with chatbots in late 2025.

The Pew Research study also suggests that parents are unaware of their children's AI use. Though two-thirds of teens reported using chatbots, their parents offered a much lower estimate of that figure, at 51 percent.

"We do find that some parents are relatively in the dark," McClain said.

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April 2025 filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.