People increasingly turn to AI chatbots for emotional support and life guidance on topics like grief, relationships, and meaning—roles historically filled by therapists and religious communities. A religion scholar argues AI exhibits characteristics of new religious movements by generating authority, meaning, and trust through personalized, charismatic-like interactions, despite lacking formal beliefs or congregations.
Multiple families have pursued legal action after their teenagers died by suicide following interactions with AI chatbots, prompting state-level legislative efforts to regulate the technology. However, many proposed bills have been shaped heavily by tech industry input and include exemptions for popular chatbots, while the federal government has resisted strict regulation to avoid impeding innovation.
An overview of AI agents as of September 2026, distinguishing them from chatbots, workflows, and models themselves. The author defines an agent as a persistent system that perceives state, reasons with a model, takes actions via tools, and repeats toward a goal. Examples range from simple API-calling chatbots to complex multi-agent systems building compilers.