Are AI chatbots putting teens’ mental health at risk? A recent report from Stanford Medicine and Common Sense Media warns that popular AI chatbots - ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, Meta AI, and Claude - are “fundamentally unsafe” for teens seeking mental health support.

Researchers tested teen accounts with thousands of queries, simulating real-life mental health struggles. While chatbots handled short, explicit mentions of self-harm reasonably well, their performance dropped drastically in longer conversations. Teens facing anxiety, depression, ADHD, bipolar disorder, or psychosis often received responses that validated troubling thoughts instead of guiding them safely.

Even Claude, the best-performing AI, cannot be trusted as a safe outlet. Experts stress that teens are vulnerable, seeking validation while still developing critical thinking skills. AI designed to be engaging and available 24/7 can amplify risks rather than mitigate them.