A brief therapeutic conversation with AI decreases intentions to exclusively seek human therapy

Large language models are increasingly being used for therapeutic purposes. Although there is a growing body of work assessing the efficacy of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for therapy, it is unknown whether using AI leads people to avoid traditional therapy with trained clinicians. Across two experiments (n=1175, mean age=40.01), we addressed this gap by asking participants to describe a personal challenge for which they might seek guidance, including from a therapist. Participants then engaged in a conversation with GPT-4 Turbo – a frontier AI model available to the public – prompted to act as a psychotherapist and pragmatic problem-solver in the treatment condition and as a neutral interviewer in the control condition. Compared to controls, treated participants reported improved mental health related to their stated challenge. They also showed an increased willingness to use AI for therapy in the future and, critically, a reduced willingness to seek therapy from human clinicians.