Structured AI Dialogues Can Increase Happiness and Meaning in Life

Millions of people now use AI-powered chatbots to support their mental health, yet little is known about whether such interactions can effectively enhance psychological well-being. We conducted a preregistered experiment on a large, diverse sample (N = 2,922) to test four AI chatbots, each prompted to employ a multi-step strategy drawn from prior psychological research on sources of happiness and meaning in life. Chatbots encouraged participants to either (a) savor positive life experiences, (b) express gratitude toward a friend or family member, (c) reflect on sources of meaning in their life, or, (d) reframe their life story as a “hero’s journey.” All four chatbots led to improvements on a broad range of psychological well-being outcomes – including affective well-being, meaning in life, life satisfaction, anxiety, and depressed mood – relative to a control chatbot condition. These results generalized to key subpopulations, including those with high baseline levels of anxiety or depression. Chatbot interactions increased interest in seeing a human therapist, including among those who were previously unwilling or had never attended therapy. A separate, nationally representative survey (N = 3,056) found that half of U.S. adults expressed interest in using empirically validated AI chatbots for mental health support. These findings demonstrate that AI-driven well-being chatbots grounded in psychological research offer a scalable and effective way to produce short-term increases in several aspects of psychological well-being. Importantly, these results do not generalize to all AI-based emotional support.