Schools are using AI counselors to track students’ mental health. Is it safe?

As hundreds of schools implement an automated monitoring tool, educators say that students can find talking to a chatbot more natural' than confiding in a human

Produced in partnership with EdSurge

The alert came around 7pm.

Brittani Phillips checked her phone. A middle school counselor in Putnam county, Florida, Phillips receives messages from an artificial intelligence-enabled therapy platform that students use during nonschool hours. It flags when a student may be at risk for harming themself or others based on what the student types into a chat.