Nearly one-third of teens use AI chatbots daily

AI chatbots are far from replacing teenagers’ social media habits, but they play an important role in their online habits. Nearly a third of U.S. teens say they use AI chatbots daily or more, according to a new report from Pew Research.

The report is Pew’s first to specifically examine how often teens use AI in general, and was released alongside its latest research on teens’ social media use. It is based on an online survey of 1,458 U.S. teens surveyed between September 25 and October 9, 2025. According to Pew, the survey was “weighted to be representative of U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 who live with their parents by age, gender, race and ethnicity, household income, and other categories.”

According to Pew, 48% of teens use AI chatbots “several times a week” or more often, with 12% saying they use them “several times a day” and 4% saying they use these tools “almost constantly.” That’s far fewer than the 21% of teens who say they use TikTok almost constantly and the 17% who say the same about YouTube. But these numbers are still significant when you consider how much newer these services are than mainstream social media apps.

The report also provides insight into which AI company chatbots are most used by teens. OpenAI’s ChatGPT came out on top by a wide margin, with 59 percent of teens saying they had used the service, followed by Google’s Gemini at 23 percent and Meta AI at 20 percent. Only 14% of teens said they had ever used Microsoft Copilot, and 9% and 3% said they used Character AI and Anthropic’s Claude, respectively.

Pew’s research comes as AI companies’ handling of young users faces increasing scrutiny. OpenAI and Character AI are currently facing wrongful death lawsuits from parents of teenagers who died by suicide. In both cases, parents say their child’s interactions with a chatbot played a role in his death. (Character AI briefly banned teens from its service before introducing a more limited format for younger users.) Other companies, including Alphabet and Meta, are being questioned by the FTC over their safety policies for younger users.

Interestingly, the report also indicates that there has been little change in the use of social media by American teenagers. Pew, which regularly surveys teens on how they use social media, notes that teens’ daily use of these platforms “remains relatively stable” compared to recent years. YouTube remains the most used platform, reaching 92% of adolescents, followed by TikTok at 69%, Instagram at 63% and Snapchat at 55%. Of the top apps studied in the report, WhatsApp is the only service to have seen significant changes in recent years, with 24% of teens now reporting using the messaging app, up from 17% in 2022.