We live in a time when talking to someone has never been easier. We can send a message in seconds, call someone on the other side of the world, or open social media and immediately see what hundreds of people are doing.
And yet, loneliness remains a growing problem.
According to the World Health Organization, around one in six people worldwide experiences loneliness. In 2025, the WHO’s Commission on Social Connection reported that loneliness and social isolation are important public health concerns, linking them to problems including depression and anxiety. At the same time, another kind of conversation has become increasingly common: talking to artificial intelligence.
People are using A.I. to ask questions, organize their thoughts, get advice and, sometimes, simply have someone to talk to. Chatbots are always available, don’t get tired, and don’t judge us in quite the same way people can.
So, if loneliness is partly about feeling like nobody is there, could A.I. actually help?
The appeal of an always-available conversation
One of the biggest advantages of A.I. is also one of the most obvious: it is convenient.
You don’t have to wait for your friend to answer or worry about whether you’re bothering someone. You can bring up the same problem five times, change your mind halfway through a conversation or ask something you would be embarrassed to say out loud. For someone who already feels isolated, that can be appealing.
Recent research suggests that feeling heard may be one reason people find A.I. conversations comforting. In a 2024 study published in PNAS, researchers found that AI- generated responses could make people feel heard, although participants reported feeling less heard when they knew the response had been generated by an artificial intelligence.
Other research has looked more directly at loneliness. A study of A.I. companions found evidence that interacting with these systems can reduce people’s immediate feelings of loneliness, possibly because users felt heard and listened to during the conversation.
Maybe sometimes what people need isn’t necessarily advice, they just want a response. And A.I. is very good at giving one.
But does it really understand us?
This is where things get complicated.
An A.I. can respond to what we say in a way that feels personal. It can adapt its tone, remember details within a conversation and generate responses that sound empathetic, but sounding like it understands us is not the same as actually understanding.
A person knows what it feels like to miss someone, fall in love, lose a friend or sit alone at lunch. An A.I. can describe those experiences, but it doesn’t live them. That difference might not matter during a five-minute conversation. It becomes more important when we start treating the interaction as a substitute for a relationship.
When does comfort become dependence?
A 2025 four-week randomized controlled study by researchers from MIT and other institutions, involving 981 participants and more than 300,000 messages, examined how extended interactions with ChatGPT affected loneliness, social interaction, emotional dependence and problematic AI use.
The study found no significant differences in these outcomes based on the experimental conditions themselves. However, participants who voluntarily spent more time using the chatbot tended to report greater loneliness, greater emotional dependence on AI, more problematic use and less socialization with people in the real world.
These findings don’t prove that AI causes loneliness. People who are already lonely may simply be more likely to use chatbots. Still, the relationship raises an important question: if talking to A.I. makes someone feel better in the moment, but also makes them less likely to reach out to other people, is it actually solving loneliness?
Why can A.I. feel like the easier choice?
Human relationships involve rejection, misunderstandings and judgment. When you tell a friend that you’re struggling, they might not know what to say, disagree with you or even misunderstand your feelings. An A.I. chatbot doesn’t have the same social consequences.
You can say exactly what you think without worrying that the person will look at you differently the next day. For someone afraid of being judged, that can make A.I. feel surprisingly safe.
But if we become too comfortable with that safety, what happens when we have to return to real relationships?
Between the screen and real life
Using A.I. for emotional support isn’t automatically bad. There are situations where it can be useful. For example, someone who doesn’t know how to start a difficult conversation with a friend could use A.I. to organize their thoughts. Or someone nervous about meeting new people could practice a conversation. In these situations, A.I. can be a tool rather than a replacement for human connection.
The important question is what happens next.
Does the conversation help someone feel confident enough to contact a friend, or does it become easier to keep talking to the chatbot because there is no risk involved?
That distinction may become increasingly important as A.I. becomes better at creating the feeling of companionship.
Are we making connections too easy?
There is something ironic about all of this. We created technology to make communication easier, yet we now have to ask whether making communication easier has actually made it easier to feel connected.
That may be part of what makes A.I. companionship so appealing. It offers some of the comfort of connection without many of the difficulties that come with real relationships. There is no waiting for a reply, fear of being misunderstood or need to navigate an awkward conversation.
But those difficult parts are also what make human relationships meaningful.
A friend who listens to you is choosing to give you their time. Someone who checks in remembers that you were having a difficult day. And someone who stays when a conversation gets complicated is making an effort to understand you.
These small acts may not always be convenient, but they are what turn communication into a genuine relationship.
So, can A.I. make people feel less lonely?
Maybe the answer is yes — but it depends on how we use it.
Research suggests that A.I. can provide temporary relief from loneliness, particularly when people feel listened to. At the same time, there are growing concerns about what happens when these interactions become someone’s primary source of companionship.
That doesn’t mean we should be afraid of A.I. It means we should pay attention to the role we give it. If someone would rather tell a machine about their problems than tell a friend, maybe we shouldn’t immediately ask: “What’s wrong with them?”. Maybe we should ask: “Why does talking to another person feel so difficult?”
The answer could have something to do with loneliness, fear of judgment, social media, increasingly individualistic lifestyles, or simply the fact that maintaining relationships takes work.
Maybe what we need isn’t technology that becomes better at replacing human companionship. Maybe we need communities where people feel less afraid to look up from their screens and talk to each other.
Because if A.I. is becoming one of the easiest places to go when we feel lonely, the question isn’t only whether A.I. can make us feel less lonely: it is also why we are becoming so lonely in the first place.
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The article above was edited by Camilly Vieira.
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