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1 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stock to Buy Before It Soars to $10 Trillion, According to a Wall Street Analyst (Hint: Not Apple)

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If this Wall Street analyst is correct, Nvidia shareholders will see monster returns through the end of the decade.

Beth Kindig, lead technology analyst at the I/O Fund, has an impressive track record where chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA) is concerned. In 2021, she correctly predicted the company would surpass Apple‘s market value within five years. Nvidia checked that box in three years.

Earlier this year, Kindig correctly called it a buying opportunity when Nvidia stock crashed after Chinese startup DeepSeek introduced low-cost large language models. The stock price has increased 28% since she made that recommendation, and it currently trades at a record high.

However, Kindig’s boldest prediction is that Nvidia will be a $10 trillion company by 2030. That implies 156% upside from its present market value of $3.9 trillion, which equates to annual returns of nearly 19% through the end of the decade for shareholders.

Image source: Getty Images.

Nvidia dominates the markets for data center GPUs and AI networking gear

Nvidia is best known for developing graphics processing units (GPUs), chips commonly used to accelerate time-consuming data center workloads like training machine learning models and running artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Nvidia dominates the space with more than 90% market share, according to Beth Kindig.

Mike Gualtieri at Forrester Research in a recent report commented, “Nvidia sets the pace for AI infrastructure worldwide. Without Nvidia’s GPUs, modern AI wouldn’t be possible.”

Importantly, the company also complements its GPUs with CPUs and interconnects, as well as Ethernet and InfiniBand networking platforms. In fact, Nvidia is the market leader in generative AI networking and it recently added Alphabet‘s Google and Meta Platforms to its growing list of customers.

Going forward, Grand View Research estimates the data center GPU market will expand at 36% annually through 2033. And Morningstar expects generative AI networking market will grow at 34% annually through 2028. That gives Nvidia good shot at annual revenue growth exceeding 30% for many years to come.

Nvidia is likely to maintain its leadership as the physical AI revolution unfolds

ChatGPT popularized generative AI, which uses large language models to turn prompts into novel media like text, images, and video. That technology created tremendous demand for Nvidia AI infrastructure, and the company is well positioned to maintain its leadership as the physical AI boom unfolds.

Physical AI lets autonomous machines understand and navigate the real world, and Nvidia addresses the technology at three layers of the computing stack: Its data center GPUs and networking platforms train AI models, its Omniverse simulation engine generates synthetic training data and tests AI models, and its embedded processors offer on-board computing power to autonomous robots and self-driving cars.

Beyond that, Nvidia’s CUDA platform includes code libraries, application frameworks, and pretrained models that accelerate the development of robotics and automotive software. That vertical integration makes Nvidia the go-to option for engineers and developers as it eliminates the complexity of integrating products from multiple vendors, which ultimately lowers the total cost of ownership.

Indeed, Beth Kindig says Nvidia has a “near-monopoly in building supercomputers” because of the “impenetrable moat” created by its CUDA software platform. She also cites vertical integration — the fact that the company provides data center components well beyond GPUs — as a major reason Nvidia can achieve a market value of $10 trillion no later than 2030.

Nvidia stock trades at a reasonable valuation compared to forward earnings estimates

Nvidia reported strong first-quarter financial results that exceeded expectations on the top and bottom lines. Revenue rose 69% to $44 billion because of robust demand for AI infrastructure, and non-GAAP net income rose 33% to $0.81 per diluted share. Earnings would have increased more quickly had it not been for new chip export restrictions related to China.

Wall Street estimates Nvidia’s adjusted earnings will increase at 41% annually through the fiscal year ending in January 2027. That makes the current valuation of 50 times adjusted earnings look reasonable, especially because the company topped the consensus earnings estimate by an average of 5% in the last six quarters. Long-term investors should feel comfortable owning the stock at its current price.

Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Randi Zuckerberg, a former director of market development and spokeswoman for Facebook and sister to Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Trevor Jennewine has positions in Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Apple, Meta Platforms, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.



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Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Semiconductor Market to

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Chicago, July 10, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The global artificial Intelligence (AI) in semiconductor market was valued at US$ 71.91 billion in 2024 and is expected to reach US$ 321.66 billion by 2033, growing at a CAGR of 18.11% during the forecast period 2025–2033.

The accelerating deployment of generative models has pushed the artificial Intelligence (AI) in semiconductor market into an unprecedented design sprint. Transformer inference now dominates data center traffic, and the sheer compute intensity is forcing architects to co-optimize logic, SRAM, and interconnect on every new tape-out. NVIDIA’s Hopper GPUs introduced fourth-generation tensor cores wired to a terabyte-per-second cross-bar, while AMD’s MI300A fused CPU, GPU, and HBM on one package to minimize memory latency. Both examples underscore how every leading-edge node—down to three nanometers—must now be power-gated at block level to maximize tops-per-watt. Astute Analytica notes that this AI-fuelled growth currently rewards only a handful of chipmakers, creating a widening technology gap across the sector.

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In parallel, the artificial Intelligence (AI) in semiconductor market is reordering foundry roadmaps. TSMC has fast-tracked its chip-on-wafer-on-substrate flow specifically for AI accelerators, while Samsung Foundry is sampling gate-all-around devices aimed at 30-billion-transistor monolithic dies. ASML’s High-NA EUV scanners, delivering sub-sixteen-nanometer half-pitch, will enter volume production in 2025, largely to serve AI silicon demand. Design teams now describe node choices not by classical density metrics but by “tokens per joule,” reflecting direct alignment with model inference economics. Consequently, IP vendors are adding mixed-precision MAC arrays and near-compute cache hierarchies as default deliverables. Across every link of this chain, the market is no longer a vertical; it is the central gravity well around which high-performance chip architecture now orbits.

Key Findings in Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Semiconductor Market

Market Forecast (2033) US$ 321.66 billion
CAGR 18.11%
Largest Region (2024) North America (40%)
By Chip Type   Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) (38%)
By Technology  Machine Learning (39%)
By Application     Data Centers & Cloud Computing (35%)
By End Use Industry    IT & Data Centers (40%)
Top Drivers
  • Generative AI workloads requiring specialized GPU TPU NPU chips
  • Data center expansion fueling massive AI accelerator chip demand
  • Edge AI applications proliferating across IoT automotive surveillance devices
Top Trends
  • AI-driven EDA tools automating chip design verification layout optimization
  • Custom AI accelerators outperforming general-purpose processors for specific tasks
  • Advanced packaging technologies like CoWoS enabling higher AI performance
Top Challenges
  • Only 9% companies successfully deployed AI use cases
  • Rising manufacturing costs requiring multi-billion dollar advanced fab investments

Edge Inference Accelerators Push Packaging Innovation Across Global Supply Chains

Consumer devices increasingly host large-language-model assistants locally, propelling the artificial Intelligence (AI) in semiconductor market toward edge-first design targets. Apple’s A17 Pro integrated a sixteen-core neural engine that surpasses thirty-five trillion operations per second, while Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite moves foundation-model inference onto thin-and-light laptops. Achieving such feats inside battery-powered envelopes drives feverish experimentation in 2.5-D packaging, where silicon interposers shorten inter-die routing by two orders of magnitude. Intel’s Foveros Direct hybrid bonding now achieves bond pitches below ten microns, enabling logic and SRAM tiles to be stacked with less than one percent resistive overhead—numbers that previously required monolithic approaches.

Because thermal limits govern mobile form factors, power-delivery networks and vapor-chamber designs are being codesigned with die placement. STMicroelectronics and ASE have showcased fan-out panel-level packaging that enlarges substrate real estate without sacrificing yield. Such advances matter enormously: every millimeter saved in board footprint frees antenna volume for 5G and Wi-Fi 7 radios, helping OEMs offer always-connected AI assistants. Omdia estimates that more than nine hundred million edge-AI-capable devices will ship annually by 2026, a figure already steering substrate suppliers to triple capacity. As this tidal wave builds, the artificial Intelligence (AI) in semiconductor market finds its competitive frontier less at wafer fabs and more at the laminate, micro-bump, and dielectric stack where edge performance is ultimately won.

Foundry Capacity Race Intensifies Under Generative AI Compute Demand Surge

A single training run for a frontier model can consume gigawatt-hours of energy and reserve hundreds of thousands of advanced GPUs for weeks. This reality has made hyperscale cloud operators the kingmakers of the artificial Intelligence (AI) in semiconductor market. In response, TSMC, Samsung, and Intel Foundry Services have all announced overlapping expansions across Arizona, Pyeongtaek, and Magdeburg that collectively add more than four million wafer starts per year in the sub-five-nanometer domain. While capital outlays remain staggering, none of these announcements quote utilization percentages—underscoring an industry assumption that every advanced tool will be fully booked by AI silicon as soon as it is installed.

Supply tightness is amplified by the extreme EUV lithography ecosystem, where the world relies on a single photolithography vendor and two pellicle suppliers. Any hiccup cascades through quarterly availability of AI accelerators, directly influencing cloud pricing for inference APIs. Consequently, second-tier foundries such as GlobalFoundries and UMC are investing in specialized twelve-nanometer nodes optimized for voltage-domained matrix engines rather than chasing absolute density. Their strategy addresses commercial segments like industrial vision and automotive autonomy, where long-lifecycle support trumps bleeding-edge speed. Thus, the artificial Intelligence (AI) in semiconductor market is bifurcating into hyper-advanced capacity monopolized by hyperscalers and mature-node capacity securing diversified, stable profit pools.

EDA Tools Adopt AI Techniques To Shorten Tapeout And Verification

Shrink cycles measured in months, not years, are now expected in the artificial Intelligence (AI) in semiconductor market, creating overwhelming verification workloads. To cope, EDA vendors are infusing their flow with machine-learning engines that prune test-bench vectors, auto-rank bugs, and predict routing congestion before placement kicks off. Synopsys’ DSO.ai has publicly reported double-digit power reductions and week-level schedule savings across more than two hundred tap-outs; although percentages are withheld, these gains translate to thousands of engineering hours reclaimed. Cadence, for its part, integrated a reinforcement-learning placer that autonomously explores millions of layout permutations overnight on cloud instances.

The feedback loop turns virtuous: as AI improves EDA, the resulting chips further accelerate AI workloads, driving yet more demand for smarter design software. Start-ups like Celestial AI and d-Maze leverage automated formal verification to iterate photonic interconnect fabrics—an area formerly bottlenecked by manual proofs. Meanwhile, open-source initiatives such as OpenROAD are embedding graph neural networks to democratize back-end flow access for smaller firms that still hope to participate in the market. The outcome is a compression of development timelines that historically favored large incumbents, now allowing nimble teams to move from RTL to packaged samples in under nine months without incurring schedule-driven defects.

Memory Technologies Evolve For AI, Raising Bandwidth And Power Efficiency

Every additional token processed per second adds pressure on memory, making this subsystem the next battleground within the artificial Intelligence (AI) in semiconductor market. High Bandwidth Memory generation four now approaches fourteen hundred gigabytes per second per stack, yet large-language-model parameter counts still saturate these channels. To alleviate the pinch, SK hynix demonstrated HBM4E engineering samples with sixteen-high stacks bonded via hybrid thermal compression, cutting bit access energy below four picojoules. Micron answered with GDDR7 tailored for AI PCs, doubling prefetch length to reduce command overhead in mixed-precision inference.

Emerging architectures focus on moving compute toward memory. Samsung’s Memory-Semantics Processing Unit embeds arithmetic units in the buffer die, enabling sparse matrix multiplication within the HBM stack itself. Meanwhile, UCIe-compliant chiplet interfaces allow accelerator designers to tile multiple DRAM slices around a logic die, hitting aggregate bandwidth once reserved for supercomputers. Automotive suppliers are porting these ideas to LPDDR5X so driver-assistance SoCs can fuse radar and vision without exceeding vehicle thermal budgets. In short, the artificial Intelligence (AI) in semiconductor market is witnessing a profound redefinition of memory—from passive storehouse to active participant—where bytes per flop and picojoules per bit now sit alongside clock frequency as primary specification lines.

IP Cores And Chiplets Enable Modular Scaling For Specialized AI

Custom accelerators no longer begin with a blank canvas; instead, architects assemble silicon from pre-verified IP cores and chiplets sourced across a vibrant ecosystem. This trend, central to the artificial Intelligence (AI) in semiconductor market, mirrors software’s earlier shift toward microservices. For instance, Tenstorrent licenses RISC-V compute tile stacks that partners stitch into bespoke retinal-processing ASICs, while ARM’s Ethos-U NPU drops into microcontrollers for always-on keyword spotting. By relying on hardened blocks, teams sidestep months of DFT and timing closure, channeling effort into algorithm–hardware co-design.

The chiplet paradigm scales this philosophy outward. AMD’s Instinct accelerator families already combine compute CCDs, memory cache dies, and I/O hubs over Infinity Fabric links measured in single-digit nanoseconds. Open-source UCIe now defines lane discovery, flow-control, and integrity checks so different vendors can mix dies from separate foundries. That interoperability lowers NRE thresholds, enabling medical-imaging firms, for example, to integrate an FDA-certified DSP slice beside a vision transformer engine on the same organic substrate. Thus, modularity is not just a cost lever; it is an innovation catalyst ensuring the artificial Intelligence (AI) in semiconductor market accommodates both hyperscale giants and niche players solving domain-specific inference challenges.

Geographic Shifts Highlight New Hubs For AI-Focused Semiconductor Fabrication Activity

While the Pacific Rim remains dominant, geopolitical and logistical realities are spawning fresh hubs tightly coupled to the artificial Intelligence (AI) in semiconductor market. The US CHIPS incentives have drawn start-ups like Cerebras and Groq to co-locate near new fabs in Arizona, creating vertically integrated corridors where mask generation, wafer processing, and module assembly occur within a fifty-mile radius. Europe, backed by its Important Projects of Common European Interest framework, is nurturing Dresden and Grenoble as centers for AI accelerator prototyping, with IMEC providing advanced 300-millimeter pilot lines that match leading commercial nodes.

In the Middle East, the United Arab Emirates is funding RISC-V design houses focused on Arabic-language LLM accelerators, leveraging proximity to sovereign data centers hungry for energy-efficient inference. India’s Semiconductor Mission has prioritized packaging over leading-edge lithography, recognizing that back-end value capture aligns with the tidal rise of edge devices described earlier. Collectively, these moves diversify supply, but they also foster regional specialization: power-optimized inference chips in hot climates, radiation-hardened AI processors near space-technology clusters, and privacy-enhanced silicon in jurisdictions with strict data-sovereignty norms. Each development underscores how the artificial Intelligence (AI) in semiconductor market is simultaneously global in scale yet increasingly local in execution, as ecosystems tailor fabrication to indigenous talent and demand profiles.

Need Custom Data? Let Us Know: https://www.astuteanalytica.com/ask-for-customization/artificial-intelligence-in-semiconductor-market

Corporate Strategies Realign As AI Reshapes Traditional Semiconductor Value Chains

The gravitational pull of AI compute has forced corporate boards to revisit decade-old playbooks. Vertical integration, once considered risky, is resurging across the artificial Intelligence (AI) in semiconductor market. Nvidia’s acquisition of Mellanox and subsequent creation of NVLink-native DPUs illustrates how control of the network stack safeguards GPU value. Likewise, Apple’s progressive replacement of third-party modems with in-house designs highlights a commitment to end-to-end user-experience tuning for on-device intelligence. Even contract foundries now offer reference chiplet libraries, blurring lines between pure-play manufacturing and design enablement.

Meanwhile, fabless firms are forging multi-sourcing agreements to hedge supply volatility. AMD collaborates with both TSMC and Samsung, mapping identical RTL onto different process recipes to guarantee product launch windows. At the opposite end, some IP vendors license compute cores under volume-based royalties tied to AI inference throughput, rather than wafer count, aligning revenue with customer success. Investor sentiment mirrors these shifts: McKinsey observes that market capitalization accrues disproportionately to companies mastering AI-centric design-manufacturing loops, leaving laggards scrambling for relevance. Ultimately, the artificial Intelligence (AI) in semiconductor market is dissolving historical boundaries—between design and manufacturing, hardware and software, core and edge—creating a new competitive landscape where agility, ecosystem orchestration, and algorithmic insight determine enduring advantage.

Artificial Intelligence in Semiconductor Market Major Players:

  • NVIDIA Corporation
  • Intel Corporation
  • Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)
  • Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.
  • Alphabet Inc. (Google)
  • Apple Inc.
  • Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
  • Broadcom Inc.
  • Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC)
  • Samsung Electronics
  • Other Prominent Players

Key Segmentation:

By Chip Type

  • Central Processing Units (CPUs)
  • Graphics Processing Units (GPUs)
  • Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs)
  • Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs)
  • Tensor Processing Units (TPUs)

By Technology 

  • Machine Learning
  • Deep Learning
  • Natural Language Processing (NLP)
  • Computer Vision
  • Others

By Application

  • Autonomous Vehicles
  • Robotics
  • Consumer Electronics
  • Healthcare & Medical Imaging
  • Industrial Automation
  • Smart Manufacturing
  • Security & Surveillance
  • Data Centers & Cloud Computing
  • Others (Smart Home Devices, Wearables, etc.)

By End-Use Industry

  • Automotive
  • Electronics & Consumer Devices
  • Healthcare
  • Industrial
  • Aerospace & Defense
  • Telecommunication
  • IT & Data Centers
  • Others

By Region

  • North America
  • Europe
  • Asia Pacific
  • Middle East
  • Africa
  • South America

Have Questions? Reach Out Before Buying: https://www.astuteanalytica.com/inquire-before-purchase/artificial-intelligence-in-semiconductor-market

About Astute Analytica

Astute Analytica is a global market research and advisory firm providing data-driven insights across industries such as technology, healthcare, chemicals, semiconductors, FMCG, and more. We publish multiple reports daily, equipping businesses with the intelligence they need to navigate market trends, emerging opportunities, competitive landscapes, and technological advancements.

With a team of experienced business analysts, economists, and industry experts, we deliver accurate, in-depth, and actionable research tailored to meet the strategic needs of our clients. At Astute Analytica, our clients come first, and we are committed to delivering cost-effective, high-value research solutions that drive success in an evolving marketplace.

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Prediction: This Artificial Intelligence (AI) and “Magnificent Seven” Stock Will Be the Next Company to Surpass a $3 Trillion Market Cap by the End of 2025

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Key Points

  • The artificial intelligence trend will be a huge growth engine for Amazon’s cloud computing division.

  • Efficiency improvements should help expand profit margins for its e-commerce business.

  • Anticipation of the company’s earnings growth could help drive the shares higher in 2025’s second half.

Only three stocks so far have ever achieved a market capitalization of $3 trillion: Microsoft, Nvidia, and Apple. Tremendous wealth has been created for some long-term investors in these companies — only two countries (China and the United States) have gross domestic products greater than their combined worth today.

In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) and other technology tailwinds have driven these stocks to previously inconceivable heights, and it looks like the party is just getting started. So, which stock will be next to reach $3 trillion?

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I think it will be Amazon(NASDAQ: AMZN), and it will happen before the year is done. Here’s why.

The next wave of cloud growth

Amazon was positioned perfectly to take advantage of the AI revolution. Over the last two decades, it has built the leading cloud computing infrastructure company, Amazon Web Services (AWS), which as of its last reported quarter had booked more than $110 billion in trailing-12-month revenue. New AI workloads require immense amounts of computing power, which only some of the large cloud providers have the capacity to provide.

AWS’s revenue growth has accelerated in recent quarters, hitting 17% growth year-over-year in Q1 of this year. With spending on AI just getting started, the unit’s revenue growth could stay in the double-digit percentages for many years. Its profit margins are also expanding, and hit 37.5% over the last 12 months.

Assuming that its double-digit percentage revenue growth continues over the next several years, Amazon Web Services will reach $200 billion in annual revenue within the decade. At its current 37.5% operating margin, that would equate to a cool $75 billion in operating income just from AWS. Investors can anticipate this growth and should start pricing those expected profits into the stock as the second half of 2025 progresses.

Image source: Getty Images.

Automation and margin expansion

For years, Amazon’s e-commerce platform operated at razor-thin margins. Over the past 12 months, the company’s North America division generated close to $400 billion in revenue but produced just $25.8 billion in operating income, or a 6.3% profit margin.

However, in the last few quarters, the fruits of Amazon’s long-term investments have begun to ripen in the form of profit margin expansion. The company spent billions of dollars to build out a vertically integrated delivery network that will give it operating leverage at increasing scale. It now has an advertising division generating tens of billions of dollars in annual revenue. It’s beginning to roll out more advanced robotics systems at its warehouses, so they will require fewer workers to operate. All of this should lead to long-term profit margin expansion.

Indeed, its North American segment’s operating margin has begun to expand already, but it still has plenty of room to grow. With growing contributions to the top line from high-margin revenue sources like subscriptions, advertising, and third-party seller services combined with a highly efficient and automated logistics network, Amazon could easily expand its North American operating margin to 15% within the next few years. On $500 billion in annual revenue, that would equate to $75 billion in annual operating income from the retail-focused segment.

AMZN Operating Income (TTM) Chart

AMZN Operating Income (TTM) data by YCharts.

The path to $3 trillion

Currently, Amazon’s market cap is in the neighborhood of $2.3 trillion. But over the course of the rest of this year, investors should get a clearer picture of its profit margin expansion story and the earnings growth it can expect due to the AI trend and its ever more efficient e-commerce network.

Today, the AWS and North American (retail) segments combine to produce annual operating income of $72 billion. But based on these projections, within a decade, we can expect that figure to hit $150 billion. And that is assuming that the international segment — which still operates at quite narrow margins — provides zero operating income.

It won’t happen this year, but investors habitually price the future of companies into their stocks, and it will become increasingly clear that Amazon still has huge potential to grow its earnings over the next decade.

For a company with $150 billion in annual earnings, a $3 trillion market cap would give it an earnings ratio of 20. That’s an entirely reasonable valuation for a business such as Amazon. It’s not guaranteed to reach that market cap in 2025, but I believe investors will grow increasingly optimistic about Amazon’s future earnings potential as we progress through the second half of this year, driving its share price to new heights and keeping its shareholders fat and happy.

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Can chatbots really improve mental health?

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Recently, I found myself pouring my heart out, not to a human, but to a chatbot named Wysa on my phone. It nodded – virtually – asked me how I was feeling and gently suggested trying breathing exercises.

As a neuroscientist, I couldn’t help but wonder: Was I actually feeling better, or was I just being expertly redirected by a well-trained algorithm? Could a string of code really help calm a storm of emotions?

Artificial intelligence-powered mental health tools are becoming increasingly popular – and increasingly persuasive. But beneath their soothing prompts lie important questions: How effective are these tools? What do we really know about how they work? And what are we giving up in exchange for convenience?

Of course it’s an exciting moment for digital mental health. But understanding the trade-offs and limitations of AI-based care is crucial.

Stand-in meditation and therapy apps and bots

AI-based therapy is a relatively new player in the digital therapy field. But the U.S. mental health app market has been booming for the past few years, from apps with free tools that text you back to premium versions with an added feature that gives prompts for breathing exercises.

Headspace and Calm are two of the most well-known meditation and mindfulness apps, offering guided meditations, bedtime stories and calming soundscapes to help users relax and sleep better. Talkspace and BetterHelp go a step further, offering actual licensed therapists via chat, video or voice. The apps Happify and Moodfit aim to boost mood and challenge negative thinking with game-based exercises.

Somewhere in the middle are chatbot therapists like Wysa and Woebot, using AI to mimic real therapeutic conversations, often rooted in cognitive behavioral therapy. These apps typically offer free basic versions, with paid plans ranging from US$10 to $100 per month for more comprehensive features or access to licensed professionals.

While not designed specifically for therapy, conversational tools like ChatGPT have sparked curiosity about AI’s emotional intelligence.

Some users have turned to ChatGPT for mental health advice, with mixed outcomes, including a widely reported case in Belgium where a man died by suicide after months of conversations with a chatbot. Elsewhere, a father is seeking answers after his son was fatally shot by police, alleging that distressing conversations with an AI chatbot may have influenced his son’s mental state. These cases raise ethical questions about the role of AI in sensitive situations.

Guided meditation apps were one of the first forms of digital therapy.
IsiMS/E+ via Getty Images

Where AI comes in

Whether your brain is spiraling, sulking or just needs a nap, there’s a chatbot for that. But can AI really help your brain process complex emotions? Or are people just outsourcing stress to silicon-based support systems that sound empathetic?

And how exactly does AI therapy work inside our brains?

Most AI mental health apps promise some flavor of cognitive behavioral therapy, which is basically structured self-talk for your inner chaos. Think of it as Marie Kondo-ing, the Japanese tidying expert known for helping people keep only what “sparks joy.” You identify unhelpful thought patterns like “I’m a failure,” examine them, and decide whether they serve you or just create anxiety.

But can a chatbot help you rewire your thoughts? Surprisingly, there’s science suggesting it’s possible. Studies have shown that digital forms of talk therapy can reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression, especially for mild to moderate cases. In fact, Woebot has published peer-reviewed research showing reduced depressive symptoms in young adults after just two weeks of chatting.

These apps are designed to simulate therapeutic interaction, offering empathy, asking guided questions and walking you through evidence-based tools. The goal is to help with decision-making and self-control, and to help calm the nervous system.

The neuroscience behind cognitive behavioral therapy is solid: It’s about activating the brain’s executive control centers, helping us shift our attention, challenge automatic thoughts and regulate our emotions.

The question is whether a chatbot can reliably replicate that, and whether our brains actually believe it.

A user’s experience, and what it might mean for the brain

“I had a rough week,” a friend told me recently. I asked her to try out a mental health chatbot for a few days. She told me the bot replied with an encouraging emoji and a prompt generated by its algorithm to try a calming strategy tailored to her mood. Then, to her surprise, it helped her sleep better by week’s end.

As a neuroscientist, I couldn’t help but ask: Which neurons in her brain were kicking in to help her feel calm?

This isn’t a one-off story. A growing number of user surveys and clinical trials suggest that cognitive behavioral therapy-based chatbot interactions can lead to short-term improvements in mood, focus and even sleep. In randomized studies, users of mental health apps have reported reduced symptoms of depression and anxiety – outcomes that closely align with how in-person cognitive behavioral therapy influences the brain.

Several studies show that therapy chatbots can actually help people feel better. In one clinical trial, a chatbot called “Therabot” helped reduce depression and anxiety symptoms by nearly half – similar to what people experience with human therapists. Other research, including a review of over 80 studies, found that AI chatbots are especially helpful for improving mood, reducing stress and even helping people sleep better. In one study, a chatbot outperformed a self-help book in boosting mental health after just two weeks.

While people often report feeling better after using these chatbots, scientists haven’t yet confirmed exactly what’s happening in the brain during those interactions. In other words, we know they work for many people, but we’re still learning how and why.

AI chatbots don’t cost what a human therapist costs – and they’re available 24/7.

Red flags and risks

Apps like Wysa have earned FDA Breakthrough Device designation, a status that fast-tracks promising technologies for serious conditions, suggesting they may offer real clinical benefit. Woebot, similarly, runs randomized clinical trials showing improved depression and anxiety symptoms in new moms and college students.

While many mental health apps boast labels like “clinically validated” or “FDA approved,” those claims are often unverified. A review of top apps found that most made bold claims, but fewer than 22% cited actual scientific studies to back them up.

In addition, chatbots collect sensitive information about your mood metrics, triggers and personal stories. What if that data winds up in third-party hands such as advertisers, employers or hackers, a scenario that has occurred with genetic data? In a 2023 breach, nearly 7 million users of the DNA testing company 23andMe had their DNA and personal details exposed after hackers used previously leaked passwords to break into their accounts. Regulators later fined the company more than $2 million for failing to protect user data.

Unlike clinicians, bots aren’t bound by counseling ethics or privacy laws regarding medical information. You might be getting a form of cognitive behavioral therapy, but you’re also feeding a database.

And sure, bots can guide you through breathing exercises or prompt cognitive reappraisal, but when faced with emotional complexity or crisis, they’re often out of their depth. Human therapists tap into nuance, past trauma, empathy and live feedback loops. Can an algorithm say “I hear you” with genuine understanding? Neuroscience suggests that supportive human connection activates social brain networks that AI can’t reach.

So while in mild to moderate cases bot-delivered cognitive behavioral therapy may offer short-term symptom relief, it’s important to be aware of their limitations. For the time being, pairing bots with human care – rather than replacing it – is the safest move.



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