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1Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute2Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems3Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesAI chatbots can be useful, but they are not universally safe or reliable. Their risks depend on the task, the information you share, the service’s design and data practices, and who is using it. Treat answers as fallible, verify consequential claims, and understand a service’s privacy practices before entering sensitive information. Take extra care with children, companion-style bots, and mental-health questions.
What does “safe” mean for an AI chatbot?
Safety is not a single property that applies equally to every chatbot or conversation. A chatbot may give a plausible but false answer, expose or mishandle information, or respond in a way that is inappropriate for a particular user. The consequences depend on what the user is doing: an error in a casual brainstorming session is different from an error about medication, a legal deadline, or an emergency.
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NIST’s AI Risk Management Framework treats trustworthy AI as a set of characteristics to consider across design, deployment, use, and evaluation. These include reliability, safety, security, transparency, privacy, and fairness. The framework is voluntary guidance, not a consumer guarantee or certification, but it is a useful way to ask what a service has addressed and where uncertainty remains.
What are the main risks?
| Risk | What it can mean for a user | Practical response |
|---|---|---|
| Incorrect or misleading answers | A system can generate fabricated details or present uncertain information with confidence. Biased data can also contribute to inaccurate or culturally incompetent responses. | Check consequential claims against authoritative sources, especially for health, legal, financial, and safety-critical decisions. |
| Privacy and data handling | Conversation content may be processed or used in ways that vary by service. | Review the service’s current privacy terms and settings; do not enter information you would not want retained or exposed. |
| Security vulnerabilities | Threats can include prompt injection, data exposure, and unauthorized access. | Do not assume a chatbot has particular security protections unless the service describes them and their scope. |
| Harmful or unsuitable interactions | Responses may be inappropriate for a user’s age, vulnerability, or situation, including in companion-style or mental-health conversations. | Use age-appropriate safeguards and involve a qualified person when the stakes require human judgment or care. |
Accuracy: fluent does not mean true
The American Psychological Association (APA) warns that generative AI systems can hallucinate, and NIST identifies hallucinations as a reliability challenge. A polished, conversational answer is not proof that its claims are correct. Ask for sources when useful, then check those sources directly; a chatbot can also misstate what a source says or invent a citation.
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For low-stakes tasks, an error may be easy to catch and correct. For decisions that could affect health, money, legal rights, physical safety, or someone’s well-being, use the chatbot as a starting point rather than the authority. Confirm the answer with a qualified professional or an authoritative source before acting.
Privacy: a chat is also a data interaction
Different services may handle prompts and personal information differently, and their terms and settings can change. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced in September 2025 that it was seeking information from seven chatbot providers about how they process user inputs, disclose data practices, and use or share personal information obtained through conversations. That inquiry is not a finding about every service or a determination that any particular practice is unsafe.
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Before sharing sensitive material, check what the service says about collection, retention, use, sharing, and available privacy controls. Avoid entering passwords, financial account details, confidential work material, identifying information about another person, or private health details unless you have a clear reason and understand the applicable protections.
Security: safeguards differ between systems
NIST’s National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) described threats including prompt injection, hallucinations, data exposure, and unauthorized access in an initial public draft of a chatbot report dated July 31, 2025. The report describes safeguards—including local deployment, access controls, and validation filters—in a specific prototype. It is a point-in-time case study, not evidence that other chatbots use the same protections or that any system is immune to attack.
Are companion chatbots safe for children and teens?
Children and teenagers warrant particular care with companion chatbots, which are designed to simulate human-like conversation. The FTC has raised concerns that young users may trust these systems or form relationships with them. In September 2025, the commission opened a 6(b) study inquiry into company practices, including how firms test and mitigate potential negative effects, set age restrictions, disclose risks, and handle conversation data. This is an inquiry into risks and safeguards, not a final adjudication that a company caused harm or broke the law.
The APA also calls for safeguards for children, teenagers, and vulnerable populations. A parent or caregiver assessing a companion chatbot can look for age limits, clear disclosures that the user is interacting with AI, controls over conversation data, and ways to limit or supervise use. These checks help assess the service; they do not establish that a companion bot is appropriate for every child.
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Can you use an AI chatbot for mental-health advice?
A general-purpose chatbot is not a therapist or clinician. The APA says generative AI cannot diagnose or treat psychological disorders and cautions users about hallucinations, bias, and potentially harmful advice. Do not rely on a chatbot for diagnosis, treatment decisions, or urgent help; contact a qualified mental-health professional or appropriate emergency service when care is needed.
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The evidence about mental-health effects is still developing. The International AI Safety Report 2026 says systematic studies are lacking and there is no clear evidence that chatbot use causes a particular mental-health issue. It also says recent research suggests general-purpose chatbots might amplify delusional thinking in people who are already vulnerable. These are qualified findings, not proof that all chatbot conversations cause harm and not a basis for treating chatbots as clinical care.
The same 2026 report says specialist chatbots may help with low-risk symptom management, but both general-purpose and specialist models have performed inconsistently in simulated prompts related to suicide. That inconsistency is a reason not to trust a chatbot to handle a crisis. A separate statistic in the report estimates that around 0.07% of weekly ChatGPT users showed signs consistent with acute mental-health crises such as psychosis or mania, based on platform data. This is not a causal estimate, an overall chatbot safety rate, or a figure that can be generalized to users of other systems.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How can you assess a chatbot before using it?
There is no universal published chatbot safety rate or threshold in the sources cited here, and the available evidence does not support naming a single safest service. Assess a particular system for the task and user in front of you:
- Consider the cost of an error. Use greater caution as the consequences of a wrong or misleading response increase.
- Check data practices. Find out what the service says about conversation inputs, personal information, retention, and sharing.
- Look for security and access boundaries. Check what protections the service describes rather than assuming safeguards based on another system’s design.
- Read the limitations and intended-use information. Notice what the provider says the chatbot can and cannot do.
- Consider the user. Look for age-appropriate controls and disclosures, especially for companion-style use and vulnerable users.
- Check how the service evaluates risk. Look for information about testing and monitoring reliability, safety, security, privacy, and fairness.
The World Health Organization’s 2025 guidance addresses large multimodal models in health-related contexts; it is relevant when considering health applications, but it does not make a general-purpose chatbot a substitute for professional care. Service capabilities, terms, settings, and safeguards can change, so recheck current information rather than treating an earlier description as permanent.
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