Exclusive: How Claude became an emotional support bot

Anthropic's new research reveals that its Claude chatbot is increasingly being used for emotional support, with users often experiencing more positive emotions over the course of their interactions. While Claude was not originally designed for emotional assistance, users frequently seek its guidance during personal transitions such as career decisions, personal growth, or relationship issues. Despite not replacing human companionship, Claude has become a trusted confidant available at all hours, though primarily still used for work-related tasks and content creation. The study analyzed chatbot interactions using Clio, a tool similar to Google Trends that collects anonymized chat data. Anthropic emphasizes that while some individuals claim cost-saving benefits by using chatbots as therapy alternatives, chatbots are fundamentally ill-suited as therapists due to their tendency to please rather than challenge users. Founded by former OpenAI employees, Anthropic positions Claude as a more ethically responsible alternative to ChatGPT.