Scalable, accessible, supportive: The benefits of AI therapy

We often blame technology for chipping away at our sense of closeness, but it can also help us feel better. Scientists agree that AI therapy has many benefits to offer as long as we do not allow it to replace us.

The BBC reported on a Chinese woman, 28-year-old Holly Wang from Guangzhou, who, every night before she falls asleep, logs onto DeepSeek, the Chinese equivalent to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, for AI therapy sessions. She lost her grandmother recently and has been struggling with grief and existential anxiety since. Some nights, DeepSeek moves her to tears with its automated responses. 

“DeepSeek has been such an amazing counselor. It has helped me look at things from different perspectives,” Wang says.

An AI therapist might be better than no therapist at all

In places where traditional mental health services are hard to come by, whether due to stigma, cost, or mere physical distance, AI can step in and fill the void. Consider China, where rising unemployment, protracted COVID-19 lockdowns, accelerating therapy costs, and the watchful eye of the Communist regime have made it difficult for many to seek professional care. Citizens like Holly Wang may only now experience what it feels like to have an emotional outlet—because of AI.

It’s not only Holly Wang who turns to AI for emotional support; according to the BBC, many young Chinese do the same, and around the globe, apps like Woebot and Replika—which, in varying degrees, are designed to address our well-being—have been downloaded by millions.

Professor Nan Jia, who has extensively researched applications of artificial intelligence technologies, explains that AI can help people feel heard. “Friends and family may be quick to offer practical solutions or advice when people just want to feel heard and understood,” she explains.

But she is also careful to denote that “Those who have medical needs, in particular, should be seeking help from trained professionals… Their use of AI will have to be scrutinized very closely.”

Chatbots must not replace therapists—but they can help

Dr. Ben Levinstein, an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, likewise warns that “the rise of AI therapy also presents serious concerns. One critical issue is ‘therapist shopping’—where patients seek out therapists who simply validate their existing views rather than providing challenging but necessary therapeutic work.”

Experts are clear on this: AI therapists should not—and must not—be allowed to replace genuine human care. 

Research reveals that a patient’s trust in a therapist is the number one determinant of therapy success. That singular bond—human to human—is something an AI therapist, for all its cleverness, can only approximate.

Therapy is much more than a delivery of techniques, John C. Norcross, PhD in psychology, says.

Even so, in a carefully structured environment, side by side and overlooked by traditional healthcare systems, AI therapy and healthcare professionals can form a powerful alliance.

The human-AI therapy alliance

In partnership with human professionals, AI’s ability to detect early warning signs and encourage individuals to seek help could be transformative. By analyzing patterns in language, online behavior, and physiological data, AI systems can flag emerging conditions and facilitate more targeted interventions before symptoms intensify.

• Early symptom detection: AI can sift through social media posts, text messages, and voice recordings to spot linguistic cues of depression, anxiety, or suicidal ideation—alerting professionals at the earliest hint of crisis.

• Personalized monitoring: Wearable devices and smartphone sensors can collect real-time data on sleep, activity levels, and heart rate, helping practitioners adapt treatment plans swiftly when a patient’s condition changes.

• Immediate check-ins: AI therapists can offer basic support during off-hours, on weekends, or between scheduled therapy sessions, ensuring patients receive round-the-clock reassurance while awaiting professional follow-up.

• Scalable screening: AI can handle large volumes of preliminary assessments, efficiently directing individuals to the appropriate level of care—a boon for overloaded mental health systems.

• Tailored interventions: Using machine learning, AI therapists can identify patterns in individual cases to suggest targeted therapeutic exercises or coping strategies, which clinicians can review and refine.

The UK, AI therapy and the continuous feedback loop

The United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) has begun integrating AI into psychotherapy through AI applications like Limbic. Designed to ease the burden on mental health services, Limbic uses algorithms and natural language processing to assess patient-reported symptoms and monitor progress between appointments. This continuous feedback loop allows clinicians to refine treatment plans more efficiently, offering early interventions for those at greater risk.

Germany uses AI therapy to improve diagnostics accuracy

Many AI-driven platforms assist German clinicians by collecting patient data, facilitating appointment scheduling, and streamlining remote consultations. According to Forvertz, these innovations reduce waiting times and improve diagnostic accuracy, particularly in regions facing a shortage of qualified therapists

Can self-guided AI therapy truly help you heal?

To some extent, an AI therapist—that is, an AI chatbot—absolutely can. Holly Wang found solace in DeepSeek’s counseling, just as many young Chinese people do. Around the globe, countless others turn to AI therapist platforms when traditional care is inaccessible, stigmatized, or feels too daunting for an issue that seems relatively minor.

Research indicates that self-guided AI therapy—that is, using an AI therapist, like chatbots or guided mental health apps without direct professional oversight—may help alleviate symptoms of anxiety and depression.  

One randomized controlled trial found that two weeks of interaction with the AI chatbot Woebot reduced participants’ depressive and anxious feelings more effectively than self-help materials, such as self-guided exercises and e-books. Another study, where participants were randomly assigned to use “Tess,” an AI therapist, instead of receiving conventional mental health resources, showed a comparable reduction in anxiety and depression.

One factor behind these encouraging results lies in the surprising emotional awareness that AI therapists can exhibit. Studies have found that AI often outperforms humans in emotional awareness. These findings suggest that AI therapists are better at recognizing patients’ mental states than most human therapists. 

Still, while AI therapists can pinpoint emotions with striking accuracy, they lack the depth of genuine empathy. That elusive human factor, rooted in shared experience, intuitive understanding, and the capacity to care genuinely, remains an irreplaceable cornerstone of authentic mental health support. Data-driven recognition can be helpful, but it cannot replicate the profoundly human ability to comfort, empathize, and validate another’s lived experience.

The best AI therapists in the world cannot take on the loving role of another human being. That remains irreplaceable. 

We often blame technology. Perhaps we shouldn’t.

We often single out digital advancement as a kind of Pandora’s box for today’s mental health issues. Indeed, modern society appears ill-equipped to absorb the rapid shifts in technology without damaging mental health. We humans—creatures who once needed nothing more than a good fire and close kin—have not yet caught up with this relentless onrush of devices and data.

We do not do too well in a pixelated world. And that’s the truth. Yet, if we turn away entirely from the technological tide, we risk overlooking its potential to help us feel better. AI, in particular, can close gaps in care, ease isolation, and deliver support in the very spaces that often cause us distress. Rather than reject these innovations outright, we might learn to harness their better half—one that could guide us toward a healthier, more connected future.