Artificial intelligence chatbots have entered many teenagers’ daily routines.
As many as 64% of U.S. teens say they use AI chatbots such as ChatGPT or Google Gemini, with about 28% saying they use them daily, according to survey results released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan polling firm.
The survey results provide a snapshot of how far AI chatbots have entered the mainstream culture, three years after the release of ChatGPT set off a wave of AI investment and marketing by the tech industry. It illustrates the extent to which chatbots have begun to influence teens’ daily lives, even as the impact of such technology on child development remains unclear.
According to the Pew survey, about 4% of teen respondents said they used AI chatbots “almost constantly,” while 12% said they used them several times a day and another 12% said they did so about once a day. About 18% said they used AI chatbots several times a week.
“It’s striking that a majority of teens are using these apps,” said Michelle Faverio, a research associate at Pew who worked on the survey.
On the other end of the spectrum, about 36% of teen respondents said they do not use AI chatbots at all.
The survey, conducted online from Sept. 25 to Oct. 9, asked 1,458 teens ages 13 to 17 about their online habits. The teens were recruited to participate via their parents, according to Pew. Though Pew surveys American teens each year, it was its first time asking broadly about AI chatbot use.
AI chatbot use by minors has been especially controversial. Chatbot makers such as OpenAI and Character.AI are facing wrongful-death lawsuits from families who say teens died by suicide with the help of their chatbots. The companies have said they should not be held responsible and that they are trying to prevent similar misuse in the future. In October, two U.S. senators said they were introducing legislation to ban companies from providing AI chatbots to minors at all.
Previous research has shown that teens are using AI chatbots for schoolwork, emotional support and creative projects including music, among other uses.
About 14% of surveyed U.S. adults said in June that they used AI chatbots “very often,” according to an NBC News Decision Desk Poll powered by SurveyMonkey, although results from different polls are difficult to compare because of the wording of questions and other factors.
AI chatbot usage among teens varied somewhat by race, according to the Pew survey: 35% of Black teens and 33% of Hispanic teens said they used AI chatbots daily, while 22% of white teens said the same. And older teens — those age 15 to 17 — were more likely to be daily users than younger teens, the survey found.
Boys and girls were equally likely to say in the survey that they had ever used an AI chatbot.
ChatGPT was the most-used AI app among teens, with 59% saying they had ever used it. Google Gemini was second at 23%, and Meta AI was third at 20%, according to Pew.
The survey also asked teens which other apps and websites they use, and the results were consistent with other survey results in recent years. No. 1 was YouTube, with 92% of respondents saying they used it, followed by TikTok at 68%, Instagram at 63% and Snapchat at 55%. At the back of the pack were Facebook at 31%, WhatsApp at 24%, Reddit at 17% and X at 16%.
Despite threats early this year that the U.S. government could ban TikTok, the share of teens who say they are on TikTok almost constantly rose slightly to 21% this year from 16% in 2022, according to Pew.
