Canadians Using Chatbots - Companionship & Emotional Support

Help by sharing your chatbot experiences! Hi everyone! My name is Tomi Raji, and I'm a journalist with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), specifically for our consumer program, Marketplace. I'm currently exploring how people in Canada use AI chatbots for companionship, roleplay, emotional, or mental support. I'm hoping to hear from people whose experiences have been positive, negative, or somewhere in between. I'm also interested in understanding the unique circumstances that can lead people to turn to chatbots in the first place. I hope this reporting can bring more nuance to the conversation and help the public better understand both the benefits and potential risks of these technologies. If you're in Canada and would be comfortable sharing your experience, I'd love to speak with you. You can reach me by email at [email redacted] or send me a direct message here. If you're outside Canada, I'd still be interested in hearing from you. Please know that I take privacy and source protection very seriously. No personal information would be published or attributed to you without your explicit consent. Thank you for considering sharing your story. And thank you to the moderator of this group for permitting me to share this callout :)