# AI Therapists Are Coming (for the Next Generation) > Source: > Published: 2026-08-13 00:39:38+00:00 ###### [Artificial Intelligence](/us/basics/artificial-intelligence) # AI Therapists Are Coming (for the Next Generation) ## Personal Perspective: Those growing up with AI will have different opinions about it. Posted August 12, 2026 [ Reviewed by Monica Vilhauer Ph.D. ](/us/docs/editorial-process) ### Key points - What feels artificial or uncomfortable to one generation may feel completely natural to the next. - Children growing up with AI will relate to it differently from adults who remember life before it. - Adults under 30 are already nearly twice as likely to feel comfortable working with an AI therapist. - The future of psychotherapy will likely involve combinations of human clinicians and AI. On July 16, 2010, [Instagram](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/social-media) co-founder Kevin Systrom [uploaded the first photograph](https://www.instagram.com/p/C/) to the app that would soon become Instagram. The picture showed a stray dog in Mexico alongside the foot of Systrom’s then-girlfriend and now-wife. Systrom applied a grainy, high-contrast filter called X-Pro II. Instagram officially launched on October 6th, 2010 and became an almost immediate success. But the filters were divisive. I was in my early twenties at the time, and many people my age found filters strange and rarely used them. The filters seemed artificial, silly, and slightly ridiculous. But you know who lived them? Kids. They happily put sparkly stars on their cheeks, dog ears on their heads, and artificial light leaks across their photographs. A filtered image did not feel fake to them in quite the same way. As that cohort has grown up, they have taken their filters with them and now you will rarely see an Instagram photograph from a 20-something without a filter. This example is relevant when we try to predict how people will relate to [artificial intelligence](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/artificial-intelligence) in the years to come. ## Immigrants vs. Natives People who live through a society changing technology usually relate to it differently from those who grow up with it. The terms associated with this distinction are “digital immigrants” and “digital natives.” Immigrants remember the old country. For children growing up today, AI will not feel foreign and it won't be mind-blowing. It will simply be what they have always known. A kid born in 2023 will spend [childhood](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/child-development) talking to AI tutors, asking AI assistants questions, creating stories with AI characters, and receiving personalized guidance from systems that remember previous conversations. By the time they are a [teenager](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/adolescence), speaking to a nonhuman [intelligence](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/intelligence) may feel no more remarkable than sending a text message feels to us. So I remain immensely skeptical when someone confidently declares that people will “never” accept AI-generated music, AI companionship, or AI [psychotherapy](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/therapy). I think predictions like these are incredibly short sighted. ## Current Perspectives At the moment, most Americans remain uncomfortable with the idea of AI therapy. [A 2026 YouGov survey found](https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/54755-americans-are-increasingly-concerned-about-ai-exacerbating-mental-health-problems): “Two-thirds (66%) of Americans are uncomfortable with the idea of working with an AI therapist if they were seeking therapy rather than having an in-person visit, including 49% who say they would be very uncomfortable. 23% say they would be very (8%) or somewhat (16%) comfortable working with an AI therapist.” If we stopped there, the future of AI therapy is still incredibly influential; imagine if 1/3rd of the therapy market disappeared in favor of AI chatbots. But the generational difference is more revealing: “Adults under 30 are about twice as likely as older Americans to say they would be comfortable working with an AI therapist (37% vs. 20%).” That generational gap is already there, and today’s adults under 30 did not grow up with anything close to the AI that children will encounter over the next decade. When we consider the possibility of AI therapists, the question is not whether a 55-year-old today wants to replace her therapist with ChatGPT. The question is whether a 16-year-old in 2039, who has interacted with intelligent machines since preschool, will find it at all abnormal talking to one about [loneliness](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/loneliness), [body image](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/body-image), [sexuality](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/sex), family conflict, or low [self-worth](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/self-esteem). I suspect most will not. ## The Future Will Not Ask Our Permission The mistake is assuming that the preferences of people alive today will remain stable while the technology changes around them. People born into an AI-saturated world will develop norms, habits, and emotional expectations that may seem foreign to those of us who arrived earlier. I could see a world where AI therapists are so effective that the public may consider it borderline malpractice for a human psychotherapist not to use an AI assistant in conjunction. I could see a future where human therapists will simply be the conduit necessary for people to feel the person-to-person touchpoint. The important divide may eventually be less between “human therapy” and “AI therapy” than between different combinations of the two. I do not know whether this future will be better or healthier. Technologies have a way of solving one problem while creating another. But I am increasingly confident that it is coming. I think it would be a mistake to confuse our current discomfort with the idea of interacting with AI therapists for an enduring opinion by culture. It may simply be the discomfort of immigrants standing at the border of a country where the next generation will feel entirely at home. References Ballard, J. (2026). *Americans are increasingly concerned about AI exacerbating mental health problems*. YouGov. [https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/54755-americans-are-increasingly-concerned-about-ai-exacerbating-mental-health-problems](https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/54755-americans-are-increasingly-concerned-about-ai-exacerbating-mental-health-problems?utm_source=chatgpt.com)