Gen Z is outsourcing hard conversations to AI. Why it matters

Around 2 a.m. on a Monday, Emily received a text from a fellow student, Patrick, whom she had gone on a blind date with two days earlier. The pair are juniors at Yale University who were set up by mutual friends. They requested anonymity so CNN agreed to change their names to protect their privacy. “Hey Emily! I hope your half-marathon went well — I’m sure you crushed it,” Patrick wrote with a winky-face emoji. “Okay, bear with me here — I’m not the best at this kind of thing, but here goes.” In a six-paragraph-long text, Patrick said he would like to “hang out more — whether it’s just as friends or whatever it was we were this weekend.” He added that he wasn’t “looking for anything too serious right now.” At first, Emily didn’t think his reply was anything out of the ordinary. “It just seemed really proper, and I guess I knew that he was a really nice guy. So, I was just like, maybe this is just how he texts.” But after sharing his message with two friends, who put it through an artificial intelligence detector, she had her answer: “It was like, 99% AI.” She was right. Patrick admitted using ChatGPT to craft his text. He said he didn’t have much experience crafting a rejection message: “What do I do here? It’s the first time I had seen anyone since my high school girlfriend, which is why I was so nervous and wanted a second opinion.” “I tried to write my thoughts down, but I wasn’t sure how to format this in a way that’s not, like, really bad, so then I went to Chat,” he said. He gave ChatGPT the situation, his thoughts and emotions, and “Chat spit out a response.” Patrick is far from alone. Researchers say a growing number of young people are turning to AI to navigate social situations — drafting rejection texts, decoding mixed signals and scripting difficult conversations. Experts warn that this habit may be stunting emotional growth, leaving an already isolated generation who came of age during the pandemic even less prepared for the messiness of human connection. Patrick went back-and-forth with the chatbot and “tweaked certain lines here and there, but it was mostly copy and paste” from ChatGPT. “I added an emoji and tried to make it sound more human,” he said. “I felt better putting this out there because I wanted to be very clear and forthcoming. I didn’t want to be wishy-washy with it in case she took it the wrong way. I knew if I did it on my own, I would have been wishy-washy,” said Patrick, who considered his move like consulting an expert. Emily said she did not think the text was clear and it made his intentions more confusing. She couldn’t tell from the AI wording “if he wanted to be friends or what.” “My main intention was to be clear in how I was feeling and thinking about the situation,” Patrick said. “Looking back on it, that was pretty poor behavior on my part. I think sitting on it for so long was the reason I went to Chat.” “I think he was overthinking it,” Emily said. “You definitely don’t need to use AI; you’re an emotionally sane guy.” She described the interaction as weird but said many of her friends have also turned to artificial intelligence to draft texts to friends or partners, or to analyze social situations — sometimes pasting entire text chains into a chatbot to decipher what someone might be thinking. “The thought of my little brother using AI to break up with his girlfriend is concerning. Because right now he comes to me, but when’s the day he’s going to turn to AI instead?” She said she is worried that Gen Zers have trouble “confronting their own feelings.” Emily said she’s also concerned about her generation’s ability to socialize, and some experts agree. It’s called ‘social offloading’ Emily’s experience is part of a broader pattern that concerns researchers. Dr. Michael Robb, head of research at Common Sense Media, calls it “social offloading,” using AI to navigate interpersonal situations, and he said it isn’t limited to Generation Z. He has observed it among Gen Alpha (born between 2010 and 2024) and some millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) as well. One-third of teens already prefer AI companions over humans for serious conversations, according to a 2025 survey conducted by Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization that helps families navigate age-appropriate media choices. “If you’re using AI to draft your messages to friends or romantic partners, you’re outsourcing the communicative act itself,” Robb said. The problem is twofold, he noted. It creates an “expectation mismatch” since the recipient is “responding to an AI-polished version of their friend and not the actual person.” Second, repeated use can erode users’ confidence in their own voices, preventing young adults from developing essential skills, such as reading social intent, inferring others’ emotions and tolerating ambiguity in social interactions. “It has implications for your sense of self, advocacy and identity formation,” which are central to social development, Robb said. “If every tricky or difficult text is mediated by the AI, it may instill the belief in users that their own words and instincts are never good enough.” Dr. Michelle DiBlasi, a psychiatrist at Tufts Medical Center and assistant professor at Tufts University School of Medicine, has observed the same trend. “I have seen young people, late teens, early 20s, using AI to socialize, and oftentimes they’re using it as a way to overcompensate for the fact that they don’t really know how to truly interact with others,” she said. “We’re social beings, and a lot of our feelings of self-worth and connection are really related to our interactions with others.” DiBlasi said that using AI in social interactions stunts emotional growth and can perpetuate feelings of loneliness and isolation. It can also limit people’s ability to pick up social cues, repair relationships and connect with others. The pandemic’s impact on connection Why is Gen Z struggling with socialization? Researchers point to a combination of digital culture and the pandemic. Russell Fulmer, an associate professor at Kansas State University who studies AI and behavioral sciences, said the two forces created the “perfect storm” for AI to be integrated into social interaction. Adolescence — roughly ages 10 to 19, according to the World Health Organization — is the critical window for developing confidence, a stable sense of identity and emotional regulation. If adolescents don’t fully develop their social skills during this time, people may be “more prone to lack confidence, more apt to escapism or avoidance and maybe there’s a lack of resiliency,” Fulmer said. DiBlasi said the pandemic hit Gen Z at a particularly vulnerable moment. “When it happened, they were in the stages where the frontal lobe of their brain was starting to form,” she said. Typically, that’s when adolescents learn to build relationships, pick up social cues and develop mentalization — “the ability to understand somebody else’s mental state or what they’re thinking and how they’re feeling.” DiBlasi said that this lack of interaction leads to “a deep sense of isolation, feeling like others don’t understand them, or that they don’t understand others,” which drives many toward AI for companionship. But Fulmer warns that chatbots can create a “loneliness loop,” offering an “appearance of connection” that ultimately feels unfulfilling and can deepen isolation. In the most serious cases, DiBlasi has seen patients experiencing suicidal thoughts turn to AI to help articulate what they’re feeling when they can’t find the words to tell others. “I think this can be really, really detrimental, because it’s important for people to express some of these emotions in a very honest way with family or friends, so that they can actually work through this in an authentic way,” she said. It’s not too late to change course Although some Gen Zers may have missed a prime window for developing social skills, DiBlasi emphasized that it is not too late for them to learn. She encourages people to reach out to friends and family rather than AI when they struggle to express difficult emotions. “These things are skills that, just like anything with practice, can actually improve,” DiBlasi said. “I understand that people are fearful or they may not want to say the wrong thing. But I really think it takes away any sort of understanding of what you’re actually truly feeling and takes away the connection and the repair that you need to make in these relationships.” Artificial intelligence is a poor substitute for the messiness of real human interaction, experts say, and that messiness is the point. “Relationships and conversations can be messy and probably should be messy, and that’s part of what makes you more socially competent in the long run,” Robb said. AI companions are “designed to be very validating and agreeable,” he noted, so their feedback doesn’t reflect the friction that’s part of how people respond in real relationships. AI users shouldn’t expect an objective read on social situations either, Fulmer added. “Social contexts are often not entirely objective,” he said. “They’re contextual, they’re relational, and therefore nuanced.” As confident as a chatbot may sound, he said, it’s searching for a through line in something that may not have one. For parents, Robb recommended watching for warning signs, including social withdrawal, declining grades or a growing preference for AI over human interaction. They can respond with low-pressure check-ins, such as asking what their children use AI for, how it makes them feel and what they think they get out of it. The goal is to get kids thinking critically about what AI does well and where it falls short, said Robb, who suggested that families consider limits to AI-usage similar to screen time rules. By Asuka Koda

The Real Reason AI Projects Fail, According to Prezi’s CEO

For years, leaders have been told that artificial intelligence is the competitive edge. According to Prezi CEO Jim Szafranski, that thinking is backward. “The technology is not the hard part,” Szafranski said. “Finding the right problem, that’s the hard part.” Most companies are getting that wrong. The myth of starting with technology Szafranski explained leaders often begin their AI journey by asking, “Where can we use AI?” instead of “What are we actually trying to fix?” That misstep is costing companies billions. According to Gartner, as many as 50% of AI projects fail to deliver meaningful results, largely due to poor alignment with business goals. Szafranski saw this play out in a steel mill project. “We thought we were solving for scheduling, but that wasn’t the real issue,” he said. After deeper analysis, the team discovered the real problem was optimizing how steel reached customers, not replacing a human scheduler. Once reframed, the AI delivered actual business impact. “The first problem you see is almost never the right one,” he added. Finding the “perfect problem” Szafranski described what he called the “perfect problem,” a challenge that is both meaningful and solvable. “You’re looking for something where the impact is obvious, and the path is achievable,” he said. “That’s where AI works.” AI pilots fail to produce measurable business impact, not because of weak models, but because companies pursue the wrong use cases. The takeaway: AI success is less about sophistication and more about precision. Why “time to outcome” beats “time to value” One of Szafranski’s biggest shifts in thinking is moving beyond “time to value.” “Time to value is incomplete,” he explained. “What matters is time to outcome, did the user actually achieve what they needed?” That insight reshaped Prezi’s AI strategy. Initially, the company focused on automating presentation features, making slides faster and easier to build. However, that wasn’t the real job customers needed done. “They’re not trying to make slides,” Szafranski shared. “They’re trying to persuade somebody.” That realization changed everything. What Prezi is doing differently Today, Prezi is using AI to help users communicate and persuade more effectively, not just design better presentations. “We shifted from helping people build presentations to helping them win moments,” Szafranski explained. The platform now focuses on: Simplifying visual storytelling for non-designers Helping users communicate ideas quickly under pressure Enabling more engaging, outcome-driven presentations This shift has unlocked growth, particularly in global markets. Szafranski noted that accessibility has become a major driver. “When you remove the barrier of design skill, you open the door to entirely new audiences,” he said. That strategy is working. Prezi continues to expand internationally, especially in regions where traditional presentation tools were harder to adopt due to language or educational barriers. Accessibility is a growth strategy, not a feature Prezi’s approach highlights a broader truth: accessibility is inclusion and expansion. According to MIT research the vast majority of AI investments fail to generate financial returns when they are disconnected from real user needs. Prezi is doing the opposite — building for real-world communication challenges at scale. The real takeaway for leaders AI isn’t magic. It’s a multiplier. As Szafranski made clear, “If you pick the wrong problem, AI just helps you get there faster.” The companies winning with AI aren’t the ones with the best models. They’re the ones asking better questions. Because in the end, the difference between failure and transformation comes down to one decision: Are you solving the problem you see or the one that matters? BY NETTA JENKINS, FOUNDER, HIC; WORKPLACE CONSULTING FIRM | AUTHOR OF SUPERCHARGED TEAMS

Meta just provided its clearest look yet at its AI plan. It’s about time

Meta’s most important launch in years may not be its latest Ray-Ban glasses or its AI app. Instead, it could be the new AI model it introduced on Wednesday, hinting at how its billions in AI investments could one day transform its products. Muse Spark, the first AI model from Meta’s superintelligence lab, powers Meta’s AI app and will be integrated into Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook and its AI Ray-Bans in the coming weeks, the company said in a press release. Meta calls the model “purpose-built” for its products and says it is designed to streamline tasks like shopping and trip planning — the kinds of things that people already use Instagram for. The launch seemed to be exactly what Wall Street wanted to hear after Meta poured billions into its AI ambitions, with little detail about how those dollars will affect to its bottom line. Shares were up more than 9% shortly after the announcement on Wednesday and closed 6% higher. Last June, Meta invested $14.3 billion in data labeling startup Scale AI and hired its former CEO, Alexandr Wang, as its chief AI officer. It gobbled up rising AI startups Manus and Moltbook. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman claimed last year that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg offered $100 million signing bonuses to lure talent away from the ChatGPT maker. And the Facebook parent company spent more than $72 billion on capital expenditures, or costs related to AI infrastructure, in 2025. Analysts and investors want to know how those investments will pay off. Zuckerberg didn’t offer specifics when asked about the return on AI investments during a January earnings call, saying his response “may be somewhat unfulfilling.” He added that the company is in “this interesting period where we’ve been rebuilding our AI effort, and we’re six months into that, and I’m happy with how it’s going.” Muse Spark is the clearest answer Meta has yet provided. Meta outlined use cases for the model similar to those offered by platforms like ChatGPT and Gemini:. for example, creating a game with a prompt, answering health questions and analyzing a photo of snacks on a shelf to provide nutritional information. But the launch signals a concrete strategy to challenge OpenAI and Google after initial confusion around the direction of Meta’s AI app. Meta positioned the app both as a destination for AI-generated videos and a hub for its smart glasses in the past. Some users accidentally posted public queries that they believed to be private last year, perhaps an indication that certain consumers weren’t sure how to use the product. Meta also provided some clues about how its social media platforms could give its AI app an edge over rivals. The Meta AI app will reference content from the company’s social media apps when answering questions related to shopping, trending topics and locations. It says it’ll draw on public posts for certain answers to provide “context from your people, right where you need it.” The company also plans to eventually incorporate Instagram Reels, photos and posts directly into answers. The timing is also critical; Meta faces increasing competition from OpenAI, Google and Apple in the coming months: • OpenAI has been aggressively expanding as it seeks to replicate the success of ChatGPT in other corners of our lives. • Google is expected to release its Android-powered spectacles this year. The search giant will likely make more announcements around its AI strategy next month during its developers conference. • And Apple’s revamped Siri is expected to launch this year following delays. Similar to Meta, Apple’s strategy is centered on leveraging a person’s preferences to personalize answers. Meta needs a win. The metaverse didn’t upend the internet like it expected. Meta’s smart glasses have been at the center of privacy concerns. OpenAI’s ChatGPT caught the tech industry – Meta included – largely by surprise, leaving tech giants racing to catch up over the last three years. The jury is out on whether Meta’s new AI models will propel its products to new heights, replicating the success of Facebook and Instagram’s early days. But the launch of a model made specifically for its products for the first time suggests Meta is building towards a vision. Now it just has to execute it. Analysis by Lisa Eadicicco

AI Is Breaking Passwords, and the Alternatives Are Getting Pretty Weird

Your next password could be your heartbeat—or maybe even the way you breathe. As hackers get better and better at cracking traditional passwords (by exploiting lazy consumer habits and technical advances such as artificial intelligence), researchers are searching for new methods to protect sensitive data. The tech industry has been trying to nudge users to other data protection methods for years—and some of those methods have been unusual, to put it mildly. Take, for example, the latest alternative authentication method, which was developed last year by researchers at Rutgers University. VitalID is a new spin on biometric protection, utilizing unique vibration patterns from breathing and heartbeats that resonate through the skull to identify you. Differences in people’s bone structure and facial tissues make the harmonics as distinctive as a fingerprint, researchers said in a paper outlining the proposed authentication method, which was envisioned for extended reality headsets. “Traditional security mechanisms—such as passwords, PIN codes, and conventional biometric systems—proved increasingly incompatible with immersive interfaces,” the researchers write. The average person is responsible for roughly 170 passwords, according to password manager company NordPass. That’s why, in part, people tend to reuse the codes—and it’s why hackers have been increasingly effective at gaining access to people’s information, in attacks on both corporate and personal systems. Biometrics have shown some promise. Mobile users are quite familiar with Face ID and pressing their thumb to the screen to prove they’re the rightful owner of the device. Fingerprint logins started to go mainstream in 2013, and face scanning began to rise in popularity in 2017. Voice recognition seemed like it would be an effective tool, but recent technology advances have sidelined that. “Now that AI can clone a voice from a few seconds of audio, it’s not reliable,” said Karolis Arbaciauskas, head of product at NordPass. Rutger’s unusual approach to security is far from the first strange way of securing user authentication. Attempts to do away with passwords have taken several different forms over the years. Here are some of the most unique: Password pill: While Apple was launching Touch ID in 2013, Motorola pursued a different authentication method. The company prototyped a small authentication pill that was designed to be powered by stomach acid. When swallowed with a glass of water, it would produce an 18-bit ECG-like signal that made your body the authentication token. As you might guess, this was seen as a pretty creepy way to guard your data, and it never made it out of the prototype phase. Tattoo: Motorola showcased a temporary tattoo that same year that could be used for authentication, but that method was met with the same privacy concerns as the pill. Body odor: As an offshoot of biometric authentication, some researchers have experimented with using a person’s unique chemical scent to confirm their identity. (Some of those same groups also studied things like the shape of your ear and your gait as identifiers.) These have fallen short of mainstream acceptance as people don’t really want to use their funk as an identification, and the sensors have not proved to be as reliable as other methods. Lip-reading: This technology actually works, focusing on the unique way people mouth specific words or phrases. It’s used more frequently as a discovery tool, though, such as discovering what someone is saying in video footage that has no audio. Most consumers have not shown a real willingness to mouth a passphrase to their PC or phone. Heartbeat recognition: This biometric authentication method has caught the eye of NASA. Like fingerprints, no two ECG patterns are the same, so by wearing an experimental band, you can verify your identity. This actually made it to market in the form of the Nymi Band, but it remains too costly at the moment for mass-market adoption. While research on fringe identification methods is likely to continue, the most promising data protection advance these days is the passkey. This authentication method generates a pair of keys: one public, which is stored on the cloud, and one private, which is stored on the device. That means that if the cloud server is compromised by hackers, accounts are still protected, as the hacker won’t have both sets of keys. In essence, the passkey you enter on your phone or via your face scan/fingerprint is one half of what’s necessary to get access. The other is stored elsewhere. For a hacker to crack both, they would need to have your phone and to hack the server, making breaches more difficult. While many major sites support passkey technology, it’s still far from universal. (And hackers have a way of catching up, which is why researchers are still looking at other methods, like biometrics. Especially as new technology appears close to breaking encryption.) “It’s no surprise that there have been and still are many attempts to free us from passwords and remembering them,” says Arbaciauskas. “But for now, there is no universally practical way to live without passwords—especially since not all websites and platforms support passkeys yet.” BY CHRIS MORRIS @MORRISATLARGE