Imaginary Artificial Friend
It started with some strange text messages from my daughter.
She was away at a friend's house after a sleepover when my phone started filling up with plans for our day.
Except they didn't sound like my daughter.
The messages were incredibly detailed. There was an optimized route for everywhere she and her friends wanted to go. There were clothing prices from stores I had never heard of, maps between friends' houses, and even suggestions for what to say to the other parents to increase the chances that they would agree to let their kids come with us.
I remember sitting at home reading all of this and thinking two things almost simultaneously:
And... this is pretty incredible.
My daughter had taken everything she and her friends wanted to accomplish that day, paired herself with an incredibly powerful tool, and generated a plan better than anything I would have expected a kid her age to put together.
At the time, that's mostly what I thought I was seeing.
A powerful tool.
And honestly, I was interested to see what my child might be capable of when paired with it.
Then the questions started changing.
AI wasn't only helping kids figure out where to go.
It was helping them figure out what to say when they got there.
What did my friend mean?
How should I talk to this person?
What should I say next?
Those aren't really technology questions.
They're relationship questions.
And somewhere along the way, I started wondering whether artificial intelligence was doing something much more significant than generating answers.
The Artificial Friend Is Already Here
I spend a lot of my life with teenagers.
And I've watched AI move remarkably quickly from something students use to complete a task into something they can consult about almost anything.
We actually joke about this at church.
When we're brainstorming, looking for information, or trying to think through an idea, someone will say:
We've basically turned ChatGPT into an imaginary staff member.
It's funny because everyone knows Pastor Chat isn't actually sitting in another office. Instead, Chat is sitting in each of our students' pockets 24/7.
Lately the joke has made me think much differently.
Our teenagers have access to something that can function like an artificial friend, sibling, counselor, parent, or even pastor, all packed inside the same device.
And it is always available.
I recently asked several teenagers how they use AI outside of schoolwork.
I intentionally did not ask some of the students whose struggles with AI I already know. Their private experiences aren't mine to turn into material for an article. They did however strengthen my desire to do this research.
Instead, I asked students I didn't necessarily expect to be using AI relationally.
Some weren't. About half were.
Some talked about projects, images, college tuition, or learning how to do things.
But others told me things like this:
“I've asked AI for advice on friendships before.”
“I ask AI stuff about life advice like high school stuff.”
“Sometimes AI is easier to talk to because I can explain exactly how I feel without worrying about being judged or making things awkward.”
“It's harder to talk to AI because they don't have emotions.”
“AI doesn't have bias so it's somewhat relieving to have a non biased perspective in your back pocket!”
I think teenagers already understand both sides of this better than adults sometimes assume.
They know what AI gives them.
And at least some of them recognize what it doesn't.
These conversations aren't a scientific survey, and I'm not treating them like one.
But national research tells us they're not isolated experiences.
A nationally representative 2025 study from Common Sense Media found that 72% of American teens had used AI companions at least once, and 52% were regular users. About one-third of teen AI-companion users said they had chosen an AI companion instead of a real person for an important or serious conversation.1
Something that answers back.
What If AI Becomes Really Good at Friendship?
This would be an easier conversation if AI were simply terrible at being a friend.
I'm not convinced it will be.
In fact, I think we need to prepare for the opposite.
AI can be patient when we're impatient.
It doesn't get tired of hearing the story.
It doesn't have somewhere else it needs to be.
It doesn't worry about whether your problem is interesting enough.
It can help organize confused thoughts, remember what you told it with what seem like perfect listening skills, and help someone rehearse a difficult conversation before actually having it.
For a teenager who is embarrassed, lonely, nervous, or simply trying to figure out what to say next, I understand the appeal.
Researchers see potential benefits here too.
A 2026 review in Child Development Perspectives describes two possibilities. AI companions could give adolescents lower-risk places to explore emotions and practice communication. Those experiences could potentially help some young people in their human relationships.
But the researchers also raise the opposite possibility. AI relationships could displace human interaction, contribute to psychological dependence, and create expectations that real relationships simply cannot meet.2
The harder question is what happens if it becomes really good at it.
This Artificial Generation now begins asking questions much bigger than friendship.
I've already seen AI enter conversations about appearance and identity. I've watched it function almost like a counselor. As a pastor, I'm also noticing that sometimes a student's question about faith has already been filtered through a chatbot before it ever reaches me.
Those questions about identity, counseling, truth, faith, and wisdom deserve their own conversations, and we'll return to them later in this series.
For now, I want to stay with the relationship itself.
What happens when the thing answering all of those questions begins to feel like a friend?
The Friend Who Needs Nothing From You
AI is always available.
It doesn't need you to ask how its day went first.
You don't have to wonder whether you're bothering it.
You can talk about yourself for an hour.
It doesn't suddenly need to talk about something happening in its life.
It doesn't ask you to come help it move on Saturday morning.
It doesn't need forgiveness.
It isn't inconvenienced when you need something.
And when you've gotten what you need, you can close the app.
I wonder if that can slowly create what my pastor Jason Underwood describes as a vending machine mentality toward relationships.
I put something in.
Something comes back.
If I don't like what came out, I try again.
But people aren't vending machines.
Friendship isn't a service we consume.
It's something we participate in.
The same developmental review raises this issue of reciprocity. AI companionship can provide responsiveness and apparent intimacy without requiring much of the compromise that human relationships demand. Researchers are asking whether that could eventually change expectations about relationships or displace opportunities to practice more complicated interpersonal skills.2
I think our conversation will eventually get bigger than whether AI makes a teenager feel less lonely.
Friendship teaches teenagers how to become someone another person needs.
Real Friends Go Both Ways
I've watched teenagers hurt one another.
I've also watched them forgive one another.
I've watched students reconcile after relationships broke down.
I've watched them build things together that none of them could have built alone.
That's friendship.
Friendship isn't valuable because two people are always on the same page.
Sometimes its value is precisely that they're not.
I think about my own friendships.
The people I love aren't copies of me.
We are different in ways that just complement each other. They see things I don't. They challenge things I wouldn't challenge myself. Sometimes I need them. Sometimes they need me.
We truly see one another.
That's something I can't do with AI.
I can receive an incredibly convincing response from a machine.
But I will never truly see it.
And it will never truly need to see me.
It doesn't go home encouraged because I listened to it.
It doesn't become stronger because I showed up.
I cannot sacrifice for its flourishing.
In every meaningful sense, the relationship still travels one direction.
Human friendship is different.
Sometimes I'm hurting and my friend listens.
Sometimes my friend is hurting and I have to stop talking.
Sometimes I need grace.
Sometimes I have to give it.
Sometimes they need to apologize.
Sometimes I do.
They teach us how to love.
Are Artificial Friends Generating Artificial Friends?
This is the question I keep coming back to.
I'm actually less concerned that teenagers are going to become confused and believe their chatbot is literally a human being.
Most teenagers know it isn't.
Instead I can't help but ask in my heart:
Imagine a nine-year-old growing up for the next ten years with unlimited access to personalized information, advice, affirmation, and artificial companionship.
Whenever they need something, it's there.
But they never have to return patience.
Never have to listen to its bad day.
Never have to sacrifice.
Never have to forgive it.
Never have to change plans because it needs them.
Never have to learn how to love it when loving it is difficult.
Ten years of receiving something that looks increasingly like relational behavior without ever needing to return it.
What habits does that generate?
We don't know yet.
We should be careful here.
We don't have twenty years of research showing that AI companionship will make teenagers worse friends. This technology hasn't existed long enough for anyone to honestly make that claim. The research itself says these long-term questions need much more study.2
But I don't think we need to know the answer before we're allowed to ask the question.
Maybe it's that practicing friendship with something that asks nothing of us could slowly change the kind of friends we become.
We are generating artificial intelligence for a generation that will never know a day without it.
Words.
Images.
Answers.
Advice.
And now, something that can feel a little like friendship.
At my church we have a hope for our kids and students:
We want them to never know a day they don't know Jesus.
We say that because we understand the power of a foundation. When faith is there from the beginning, it doesn't simply become something they know. It becomes part of how they understand themselves, their relationships, and the world around them.
That's what makes me think about AI differently for kids.
This generation may never know a day without it either.
They are growing up with personalized answers, advice, content, and increasingly something that can feel like relational connection, all available whenever they want it.
If knowing Jesus from the beginning can shape the way a child sees the world, we should at least ask how growing up with AI from the beginning might shape them too.
Because while artificial intelligence is generating more and more for our kids, something much more important is still being formed.
Our kids.
Something is being generated in them.
Don't Panic. Parent.
None of this makes me want parents to panic.
Actually, I think panic would make things worse.
If our kids believe we're terrified of AI, they'll simply stop telling us how they're using it.
My children are going to use AI.
My students are going to use AI.
I use AI.
There is extraordinary potential here.
I want my daughter to create things with it that I couldn't have imagined creating at her age.
I want our students prepared for the world they're entering.
The goal isn't to raise a generation afraid of artificial intelligence.
It's to raise a generation wise enough to know what AI can give them, and what it never can.
The students who I have seen handle AI the best do it by setting clear boundaries.
“I typically ask my friend about things bc AI always paints everything in a positive light so I don't ever get legitimate feedback”
“I only use AI for work if I need to and typically I can go to my friend if I need to talk about something”
SET RELATIONAL AI BOUNDARIES.
Don't wait until an emotional dependency develops before deciding what healthy use looks like. There is a difference between using AI to plan a shopping trip and building a private emotional relationship with a machine.
ASK ABOUT AI WITHOUT MAKING IT WEIRD.
Ask your kids what they use it for. Ask whether they've ever talked to it about something personal. Ask whether it has ever helped them have a better conversation with a real person. Curiosity will probably teach you more than panic.
KEEP MOVING THEM TOWARD PEOPLE.
AI may help a teenager organize what they're feeling or prepare for a difficult conversation. Great. Let it become a bridge back toward people rather than a replacement for them.
And show them what real friendship looks like. Let them see us show up, listen when it's inconvenient, forgive when we've been hurt, and make room in our lives for people who need something from us.
TREAT THE TOOL LIKE A TOOL.
Use it. Learn it. Create with it. Tools should make us better. But don't let something designed to serve them quietly become the place they depend on for friendship.
The Other Piece of Iron
Jesus gives us an incredibly relational picture of life.
Love one another.
Encourage one another.
Forgive one another.
Carry one another's burdens.
Serve one another.
Proverbs gives us the familiar image of iron sharpening iron.
There is another piece of iron on the other side.
There is another person there.
Someone who has needs.
Someone who can disagree.
Someone who can disappoint you.
Someone who needs forgiveness.
Someone who sometimes needs you to put your own needs aside and show up for them.
But God never asked us to become self-sharpening people.
I want our kids to master the tool.
I don't want the tool to master our kids.
LEARN THE TOOL.
TEACH OUR KIDS TO MASTER THE TOOL.
JUST DON'T MISTAKE THE TOOL FOR THE OTHER PIECE OF IRON.
Because the question isn't only what our kids will generate with these tools.
It's what these tools might generate in our kids.
We are watching the first generation grow up with artificial intelligence in their pockets.
They will use it to generate answers, ideas, images, advice, and maybe even something that feels like friendship.
But they are still being formed too.
Artificial intelligence is helping generate...
And while we teach them to use the tools that will surely shape their generation, we can still show them how to become the kind of friends no machine can ever be.
Iron that sharpens back.
A YouthStory series by Jon Allen exploring what happens when artificial intelligence becomes part of growing up, not simply as a tool, but as a voice increasingly present in relationships, identity, knowledge, faith, and wisdom.
1. Common Sense Media, Talk, Trust, and Trade-Offs: How and Why Teens Use AI Companions (2025)