AI and Mental Health

From our partner organization NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

People are asking AI chatbots about their mental health by the millions, and until now there has been no public test of what those chatbots say back. NAMI’s AI and Mental Health resource page, built on a national NAMI/Ipsos poll, sets out what people are actually doing, what they want, and what a trustworthy tool would have to prove.

In December 2025 NAMI launched an effort to benchmark how AI tools handle mental health questions, and in August 2026 expanded it by naming Dr. John Torous as special advisor so the benchmarks rest on lived experience as well as clinical evidence.

Key Findings from NAMI’s AI and Mental Health Work

Topic	Key Findings
Current use	A meaningful share of adults — 12% in the NAMI/Ipsos poll — have already turned to an AI chatbot for mental health support.
What people want	Tools that are safe, accurate, and that point a person in crisis toward a human.
The gap	No independent, published test of how different AI tools answer mental health questions exists today.
NAMI’s response	A benchmarking effort, launched December 2025 and expanded August 2026 with Dr. John Torous, to test tools against clinical evidence and lived experience.
Why NAMI	Millions of members, no product to sell — the independent voice the field is missing.

What This Means for the Field

The idea is simple and overdue. Before a family trusts a tool, someone independent should have tried it, and the benchmarks will give policymakers the plain answer they have been missing.

For Path Forward’s responsible-AI work:

• Safety first. The benchmark will tell families and clinicians which tools recognize crisis and route people to help.
• Lived experience counts. NAMI’s members know what a good answer sounds like; the benchmark is built with them.
• Policy needs a yardstick. Regulators cannot set standards for tools no one has measured.

The call to action is simple: support independent benchmarking of AI mental health tools, and hold every tool to the standard of pointing a person in crisis toward a human.