Mind, one of the UK’s largest mental health charities, has published research finding that three in five people who used AI chatbots for mental health support in the past year did so instead of formal services like NHS talking therapies — a substitution pattern the charity says is happening faster than regulation can keep up with.
What the Survey Found
Among respondents who had used a chatbot for mental health support in the previous twelve months, 60% said they used it in place of more formal support such as NHS talking therapies. Within that same group, around a third (31%) said they actively preferred AI over formal support, while nearly one in five (18%) said they turned to a chatbot because they could not access formal support at all — pointing to both a preference shift and a genuine access gap behind the numbers.
A Sharp Rise in Safeguarding Concerns
Mind said it recorded no safeguarding reports involving AI chatbots before 2026, but concerns linked to AI have accounted for nearly 10% of all safeguarding reports made to the charity since January. The reported harms include chatbots giving misleading or inaccurate advice and users developing a dependency on the tools in place of human support, according to Mind’s findings.
Why People Are Turning to Chatbots
The appeal is straightforward: AI chatbots are available at any hour, carry no waiting list, and cost nothing beyond an existing subscription or free-tier access, compared with NHS talking therapy waits that can stretch for weeks or months in many parts of the UK. For the 18% who said they couldn’t access formal support, the chatbot isn’t competing with therapy so much as filling a vacuum left by capacity-constrained public services.
Mind’s Regulatory Push
The charity has launched a Mental Health in a World of AI commission calling for stronger regulation and accountability for the tech industry around mental-health-adjacent AI products. That call appears to have public backing: Mind’s research found 79% of respondents said stronger regulation of AI chatbots was important, suggesting demand for guardrails even among people who use the tools themselves.
How This Fits the Broader 2026 Picture
Mind’s findings echo a wider trend documented elsewhere this year, including survey data showing roughly one in three people have turned to AI for some form of mental health help, and separate reporting on a growing wave of US state-level chatbot legislation, including a youth AI safety law signed in Connecticut. Together, the data suggests the UK is not an outlier — usage is climbing globally faster than clinical safety frameworks or legal oversight.
Two Views on What to Do About It
Digital health advocates argue chatbots fill a genuine access gap and that banning or heavily restricting them would leave the 18% with no formal access worse off, not better — the fix, in their view, is embedding safety guardrails and crisis-escalation protocols into the tools rather than discouraging their use outright. Mind and allied charities counter that convenience without clinical oversight is precisely the danger, arguing that a chatbot which cannot recognize a genuine crisis or coordinate with a human provider is a poor substitute no matter how available it is, and that waiting for the industry to self-regulate has already let harms accumulate since January.
What’s Next
With nearly 80% public support for tighter rules, the pressure now shifts to UK regulators and NHS commissioners to decide whether AI mental health tools get formal oversight similar to a medical device, or continue operating in the lighter-touch category of general wellness apps. Mind’s commission is expected to publish further recommendations, and the next test will be whether lawmakers move before the next wave of usage and safeguarding data arrives.
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