I wrote the proposal for this session because most conversations about teenagers and AI companions happen without teenagers in them. It ran on 22 September 2026 as an Affiliate Session of the ITU-UNDP Digital@UNGA Programme during UN High-Level Week, organized by Women in AI Ethics®. I led the research and content development, helped bring the panel together, and spoke as a panelist.

My argument was simple. Telling teens to stop using AI companions won't work. The feelings they develop toward these tools are real, and many turn to a chatbot at one in the morning because no one else is awake, affordable, or safe to talk to. The better question is where that connection leads: toward the people in their lives, or away from them.

The session
Programme
ITU-UNDP Digital@UNGA, Affiliate Session
Organized by
Women in AI Ethics® / WAIE+
Moderator
Mia Shah-Dand · Founder, Women in AI Ethics®
Panelists
Fatima Hussain · Founder, Youth for Responsible AI (y4rai)
Allegra Cuomo · Founder, InnoEthics
Mira Camillo · Vanguard Voices Columnist, WAIV Magazine; Founder, RIYA Project
Date
22 September 2026
From the panel
11:10
“I don't think someone starts using a chatbot thinking, this is going to replace my friends. It happens in a much more gradual process.”
31:24
“Healthy relationships point outward. A healthy friendship should connect you to more of your family, your friends, your teachers, members of your community… An unhealthy relationship starts pointing inwards.”
31:50
“The question isn't really whether a teenager can feel connected to AI, because clearly they can. The bigger question is what that connection can actually do to the rest of their life.”
46:36
“We have to be careful to not look at someone who becomes really attached to an AI companion and say, ‘Why don't they talk to a real person?’ Because they might not have a real person.”
48:26
“There's a difference between saying to the chatbot ‘help me organize my thoughts’ and depending on it to tell me how I should feel or what decision I make.”

Each time opens the replay at that moment.

I've since developed the 31:24 idea into the Inward/Outward Test.

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