According to parent company OpenAI, 800 million people use ChatGPT every week.
The company’s September 2025 report found that people are turning to chatbots for a variety of reasons, including translation, programming, data analysis, recipes, and chatting.
While many of the uses for bots are fairly routine, some experts have noticed that people are turning to ChatGPT for advice on sensitive issues such as medical treatment.
That’s not a great idea, says therapist, psychologist, and researcher Vail Wright.
“These bots basically tell people exactly what they want to hear,” Wright said on a recent episode of the podcast “Speaking of Psychology.”
“So if you’re struggling in that particular moment and you’re inputting potentially harmful or unhealthy behaviors or thoughts, these kinds of chatbots are built to reinforce those harmful thoughts and behaviors.”
Often the law is applied incorrectly.
Jackie Combs
Divorce Lawyer Blank Rome
Jackie Combs, a family and divorce attorney at Blank Rome, has noticed that her clients are turning to bots for help with even sensitive issues. Combs represents high-net-worth clients like model Emily Ratajkowski.
“One of the things I’m seeing with a lot of younger generations, particularly Millennials, and Gen Z, is that they’re turning to ChatGPT for legal advice,” she says.
Combs advises against it.
We don’t know which websites ChatGPT extracts information from, but we’ve found that when clients send us bot legal analysis, it’s not always accurate.
ChatGPT doesn’t take into account “the complexities that are different in everyone’s case,” she says. “And in many cases, the law is being misapplied.”
When it comes to a decision as high-stakes as divorce, you don’t want to risk accepting advice from a machine that could lead you astray.
ChatGPT “is not a substitute for the years of experience that a lawyer can provide,” Combs said.
If you need legal advice, “always consult a lawyer,” she says.
Want to level up your AI skills? Sign up for CNBC Make It’s new online course, “How to use AI to better communicate at work by Smarter by CNBC Make It.” Get specific prompts to optimize your emails, notes, and presentations for tone, context, and audience.
Plus, sign up for the CNBC Make It newsletter for tips and tricks to succeed at work, money, and life, and request to join our exclusive community on LinkedIn to connect with experts and colleagues.
