From Diagnoses to Treatments, Why Americans Use AI Chatbots for Health

Key Findings

• — A quarter of Americans say they use AI chatbots to diagnose symptoms, with similar shares using them to understand a doctor's diagnosis or lab results
• — On chatbot use for loneliness, 39% say chatbots do more to hurt people and 19% say they do more to help
• — On chatbot use for depression, 36% say more harm and 17% say more help; on stress the gap narrows to 29% harm and 22% help
• — About half of adults under 30 (49%) say chatbots do more to hurt people who use them for loneliness, and 41% say the same for depression, against 23% each saying they help
• — About three in ten adults say they are not sure about AI's impact in these uses, and between 14% and 18% say it neither helps nor hurts
• — Younger adults are more likely than older adults to use chatbots for emotional support while simultaneously being the most pessimistic about whether it helps anyone

Methodology Notes

n=3,488 US adults surveyed 22-28 June 2026 on the American Trends Panel, an address-recruited probability panel weighted to represent the US adult population. Questionnaire, topline and methodology are published as separate documents. The help-or-hurt items are attitudinal and were asked of all adults, not only of chatbot users, so they measure public belief about effects on other people rather than any measured outcome. The report is an analysis of a broader Pew survey on Americans' views of AI in healthcare.

Sources