FDA Advisors Explore a Possible Future With Chatbot Mental Health Care

Can a chatbot safely deliver mental health care? The FDA's Digital Health Advisory Committee met last week to grapple with this question to help build appropriate guardrails for future digital health technologies.

The discussion centered around generative artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled devices intended for use in diagnosing, curing, mitigating, treating, or preventing mental health diseases and conditions, according to briefing documents.

About 23% of U.S. adults -- 61.5 million people -- live with a mental health condition, and roughly one in five children have ever been diagnosed with a mental, emotional, or behavioral health condition, according to the CDC.