As conversational AI systems become increasingly integrated into daily life, their potential effects on user well-being require ongoing attention. While consumer-facing generalist models can provide benefits, including improved access to information, learning, productivity, self-reflection, and companionship, they also introduce risks, such as emotional entanglement, unhealthy dependence, and the amplification of psychological vulnerabilities. Drawing on prior research and empirical observations of AI chatbot behavior, we propose a set of aspirational directions for guiding the behavior of general-purpose AI systems in ways that may reduce potential psychological harms and support user well-being. We acknowledge the difficulty of systematically assessing the long-term impacts of AI chatbot use and frame these directions as hypotheses for studying how AI behavior may influence users across general interactions, role-playing scenarios, and contexts that could be characterized as providing psychological support. While some proposed directions are supported by existing research and expert insights, others identify open questions and areas requiring deeper study. We hope that this formulation and these hypotheses encourage further discussion, empirical investigation, and exploration of interactive design approaches aimed at better accommodating users’ psychological needs and promoting their well-being.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As conversational AI systems become increasingly integrated into daily life, their potential effects on user well-being require ongoing attention. While consumer-facing generalist models can provide benefits, including improved access to information, learning, productivity, self-reflection, and companionship, they also introduce risks, such as emotional entanglement, unhealthy dependence, and the amplification of psychological vulnerabilities. Drawing on prior […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","msr-author-ordering":[{"type":"text","value":"Jina Suh","user_id":0},{"type":"user_nicename","value":"Mihaela Vorvoreanu","user_id":"36804"},{"type":"user_nicename","value":"Forough Poursabzi","user_id":"40264"},{"type":"text","value":"Emily Tseng","user_id":0},{"type":"text","value":"Eugenia Kim","user_id":0},{"type":"text","value":"Luke Nicholls","user_id":0},{"type":"text","value":"James W. Pennebaker","user_id":0},{"type":"user_nicename","value":"Eric Horvitz","user_id":"32033"}],"msr_publishername":"","msr_publisher_other":"","msr_booktitle":"","msr_chapter":"","msr_edition":"","msr_editors":"","msr_how_published":"","msr_isbn":"","msr_issue":"","msr_journal":"","msr_number":"","msr_organization":"","msr_pages_string":"","msr_page_range_start":"","msr_page_range_end":"","msr_series":"","msr_volume":"","msr_copyright":"","msr_conference_name":"","msr_doi":"","msr_arxiv_id":"","msr_mag_id":"","msr_other_authors":"","msr_other_contributors":"","msr_speaker":"","msr_award":"","msr_affiliation":"","msr_institution":"","msr_host":"","msr_version":"","msr_duration":"","msr_release_tracker_id":"","msr_highlight_type":"","msr_date_display_format":"","msr_main_download_label":"","msr_external_link_label":"","msr_doi_label":"","msr_published_date":"2026-07","msr_startdate":"","msr_presentation_date":"","msr_highlight_text":"","msr_notes":"","msr_longbiography":"","msr_publicationurl":"","msr_external_url":"","msr_secondary_video_url":"","msr_conference_url":"","msr_journal_url":"","msr_year":2026,"msr_month":7,"msr_day":0,"msr_microsoftintellectualproperty":false,"msr_pub_id":"","msr_publication_uploader":[{"type":"url","title":"https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/2607.25057","label_id":243132,"id":false,"viewUrl":false}],"msr_related_uploader":[],"msr_original_fields_of_study":[],"msr_s2_paper_id":"","msr_s2_pdf_url":"","msr_citation_count_updated":"","msr_citation_count":0,"msr_influential_citations":0,"msr_reference_count":0,"msr_s2_open_access":false,"msr_s2_author_ids":[],"msr_pub_ids":[],"msr_hide_image_in_river":0,"footnotes":""},"msr-research-highlight":[],"research-area":[13556,13554],"msr-publication-type":[193726],"msr-publisher":[],"msr-publication-cta":[],"msr-focus-area":[],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-post-option":[],"msr-field-of-study":[256039,255217],"msr-conference":[],"msr-journal":[],"msr-impact-theme":[261676],"msr-pillar":[],"class_list":["post-1180246","msr-research-item","type-msr-research-item","status-publish","hentry","msr-research-area-artificial-intelligence","msr-research-area-human-computer-interaction","msr-locale-en_us","msr-field-of-study-artifcial-intelligence","msr-field-of-study-human-computer-interaction-4"],"msr_publishername":"","msr_edition":"","msr_affiliation":"","msr_published_date":"2026-07","msr_host":"","msr_duration":"","msr_version":"","msr_speaker":"","msr_other_contributors":"","msr_booktitle":"","msr_pages_string":"","msr_chapter":"","msr_isbn":"","msr_journal":"","msr_volume":"","msr_number":"","msr_editors":"","msr_series":"","msr_issue":"","msr_organization":"","msr_how_published":"","msr_notes":"","msr_highlight_text":"","msr_release_tracker_id":"","msr_original_fields_of_study":"","msr_download_urls":"","msr_external_url":"","msr_secondary_video_url":"","msr_longbiography":"","msr_microsoftintellectualproperty":0,"msr_main_download":"","msr_publicationurl":"","msr_doi":"","msr_publication_uploader":[{"type":"url","title":"https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/2607.25057","label_id":243132,"id":false,"viewUrl":false}],"msr_related_uploader":[],"msr_citation_count":0,"msr_citation_count_updated":"","msr_s2_paper_id":"","msr_influential_citations":0,"msr_reference_count":0,"msr_arxiv_id":"","msr_s2_author_ids":[],"msr_s2_open_access":false,"msr_s2_pdf_url":null,"msr_attachments":[],"msr-author-ordering":[{"type":"text","value":"Jina Suh","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"user_nicename","value":"Mihaela Vorvoreanu","user_id":36804,"rest_url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/microsoft-research\/v1\/researchers?person=Mihaela Vorvoreanu"},{"type":"user_nicename","value":"Forough Poursabzi","user_id":40264,"rest_url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/microsoft-research\/v1\/researchers?person=Forough Poursabzi"},{"type":"text","value":"Emily Tseng","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"text","value":"Eugenia Kim","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"text","value":"Luke Nicholls","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"text","value":"James W. Pennebaker","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"user_nicename","value":"Eric Horvitz","user_id":32033,"rest_url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/microsoft-research\/v1\/researchers?person=Eric Horvitz"}],"msr_impact_theme":["Trust"],"msr_research_lab":[],"msr_event":[],"msr_group":[],"msr_project":[1151473],"publication":[],"video":[],"msr-tool":[],"msr_publication_type":"unpublished","related_content":{"projects":[{"ID":1151473,"post_title":"Psychological influences of AI","post_name":"psychological-influences-of-ai","post_type":"msr-project","post_date":"2025-10-07 13:27:35","post_modified":"2026-06-15 13:08:04","post_status":"publish","permalink":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/project\/psychological-influences-of-ai\/","post_excerpt":"The Psychological Influences of AI (Psi) project explores how AI\u2014especially generative AI\u2014affects human psychology, including cognition, emotion, behavior, and well-being. It investigates topics such as trust, dependency, attention, agency, the psychological impacts of anthropomorphic AI, people forming problematic relationship with AI, and AI-associated delusions. One example of a project we are actively working on is understanding, through qualitative in-depth research interviews, those moments when people felt maybe AI was too real, understood or was aware…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-project\/1151473"}]}}]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item\/1180246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/msr-research-item"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item\/1180246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1180249,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item\/1180246\/revisions\/1180249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1180246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"msr-research-highlight","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-highlight?post=1180246"},{"taxonomy":"msr-research-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-area?post=1180246"},{"taxonomy":"msr-publication-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-publication-type?post=1180246"},{"taxonomy":"msr-publisher","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-publisher?post=1180246"},{"taxonomy":"msr-publication-cta","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-publication-cta?post=1180246"},{"taxonomy":"msr-focus-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-focus-area?post=1180246"},{"taxonomy":"msr-locale","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-locale?post=1180246"},{"taxonomy":"msr-post-option","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-post-option?post=1180246"},{"taxonomy":"msr-field-of-study","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-field-of-study?post=1180246"},{"taxonomy":"msr-conference","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-conference?post=1180246"},{"taxonomy":"msr-journal","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-journal?post=1180246"},{"taxonomy":"msr-impact-theme","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-impact-theme?post=1180246"},{"taxonomy":"msr-pillar","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-pillar?post=1180246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}