AHA Seminar: Yutong Zhang | When AI Becomes a Companion: Understanding Their Relationship with Psychological Well-Being

People are forming companionship-like bonds with AI chatbots. Over time, those bonds may come at the expense of in-person relationships, and of our psychological well-being. Yutong Zhang, PhD student in Computer Science at Stanford University, studies how socio-technical systems shape human social interactions. In our next AHA seminar, she shares findings from surveys and real conversation histories of over 1,000 Character.AI users, showing that the link between AI companionship and well-being depends on people’s offline social lives and how they use chatbots. A year later, her team found that users who engaged more kept engaging, and that this sustained use was linked to declines in well-being, largely explained by spending less time with people in person. She’ll also discuss how AI companionship may reshape our social networks, and how we can design more responsible chatbots that support healthy social connection. We hope you join us for an intriguing seminar and engaging Q&A!