AI companions and adolescent social relationships: Benefits, risks, and bidirectional influences

AI companions (AI-Cs)—rapidly emerging conversational agents built on large language models that can provide personalized humanlike companionship—create unprecedented opportunities for adolescents to form emotional bonds with nonhuman entities during a critical period for social development. In this article, we discuss the interplay between adolescents' use of AI-Cs and their social relationships based on theoretical hypotheses driving research on digital communication and adolescent well-being. We explore the benefits and risks of AI-Cs to social development based on the stimulation hypothesis and the displacement hypothesis: AI-Cs can provide safe spaces for identity exploration and emotional expression, potentially building skills that transfer to human relationships; however, concerns about AI-Cs include time displacement, psychological dependence, and unrealistic relationship expectations. We also address how adolescents' social relationships may drive their AI-C use, based on the social enhancement hypothesis and the social compensation hypothesis. Our discussion draws on studies of adolescents and adults in the United States and in other countries. We offer recommendations for research in this area, which deserves urgent investigation as these technologies advance rapidly.