One in six UK adults have turned to an artificial intelligence chatbot rather than a friend for advice, comfort or a second opinion, according to research from greeting card marketplace thortful.

The survey found that 16.8 per cent of respondents had chosen AI over a friend in this way, and 12.8 per cent described their chatbot as a genuine long-term companion. The company did not publish a sample size or fieldwork dates alongside the findings.

Most respondents had not made the switch. Some 68.3 per cent said they had never chosen AI over a person for advice or support. Among those who had used AI in this way, 46.9 per cent said they still preferred their own thinking to the chatbot’s suggestions.

Of the relationships covered by the survey, friends were the ones respondents most often replaced with AI. Smaller shares had turned to a chatbot instead of a parent (8.2 per cent), a partner (7.2 per cent) or their boss (7.2 per cent). Fewer still had done so instead of a doctor (5.8 per cent) or a lawyer (4.0 per cent).

Overall, 54.3 per cent of respondents had used AI for at least one of the purposes listed in the research, which ranged from writing work emails to health questions. The survey found 5.8 per cent had asked a chatbot what to say during an argument, and 11.4 per cent had used AI to help find the words to write in a greeting card.

The findings add to official data on how widely the technology is used. The Office for National Statistics reported in July that 41 per cent of adults in Great Britain had used AI for work or education in the past 12 months, while 33 per cent said they had not knowingly used it at all. The same survey found 38 per cent thought AI brought more risks than benefits.

Men were more likely than women to describe their AI as a long-term companion, at 16.4 per cent against 9.7 per cent, thortful said. Women were twice as likely as men to rate the chatbot’s advice as genuinely good logic, at 25.3 per cent compared with 12.5 per cent.

Edinburgh, Southampton and Manchester recorded the highest levels of attachment, with around one in five residents in each city describing their chatbot as a long-term companion, according to the research.

Age patterns were not linear. Adults aged 18 to 24 and those over 55 were the most likely to say they still preferred their own output to AI’s, while respondents aged 25 to 54 had leaned on AI most heavily, thortful said.

Separate ONS figures, cited in a Business Matters analysis of AI adoption, show 55 per cent of employees using AI for work or education, compared with 35 per cent of businesses with 10 or more employees using at least one AI technology.

In its release, thortful said researchers worldwide had raised long-term questions about what happens when always-available AI fills gaps that once belonged to people, and that its findings suggested the shift was already happening in the UK on a small scale.

Behaviour specialist Sim Shamu, commenting on the research, said the use of AI ahead of friends was not necessarily a problem and depended on the role the tool played.

“I don’t think turning to AI before another person is automatically a cause for concern. For me, the important thing is what the tool is doing for you,” he said. “Used like that, it can act almost like rehearsal, helping someone organise their thoughts, understand a concept and then going back into the real interaction better prepared.”

He added: “Instead, we should be asking whether the tool is helping us participate more effectively in our relationships or gradually replacing parts of those relationships.”

Shamu said the key question was “what role AI is serving in the moment”, listing rehearsal, reassurance, information, avoidance and decision-making as uses likely to have very different consequences.

He said the survey had found “both substantial continued preference for people’s own judgement and a smaller group reporting AI as a longer-term companion, so there may be several different patterns sitting underneath the headline figures.”

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