Axios Live: AI could support child mental health — with the right guardrails

WASHINGTON, D.C. — AI tools like chatbots and agents could expand access to mental health support for children, as long as protections are put into place, public health, advocacy, and technology leaders said at an April 15 Axios event.

Why it matters: Youth and adolescent mental health is a worsening crisis in the United States, and AI could augment care for a struggling population.

Axios' Maria Curi and Megan Morrone moderated the Expert Voices roundtable, which was sponsored by Roblox.

Driving the news: Courts are holding some tech giants accountable for how their platforms influence young users at the same time as AI is introducing rapidly changing, largely unregulated products into children's lives.

By the numbers: More than 50% of people who reach out to Crisis Text Line, a free text-based mental health support service, are under the age of 18, according to the nonprofit's chief health officer Shairi Turner.

• In 2025, the number one topic of conversation for that age group was suicide.
• "One in three young people under the age of 14 who texted in" were doing so to talk about potentially killing themselves, Turner said.

What they're saying: AI could help identify at-risk children and connect them with valuable resources.

• Sandy Hook Promise co-founder and co-CEO Nicole Hockley said her organization could use agents to scale the work they already do with local law enforcement and juvenile intervention to identify young people at risk for harming themselves and others.
• "I also think there is a way for us to teach the agents how to help recognize when someone needs help," she added.

Yes, but: "We've seen decades of regression when it comes to investments in mental health and youth," said Nicol Turner Lee, senior fellow and director of the Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings Institution.

• "We've sort of opened the door for certain companies to come in and to capture that attention," she warned.
• "The Silicon Valley Tech model doesn't apply to eight-year-olds," The Digital Economist CEO Navroop Kaur Sahdev added. "We're basically playing with their lives."

What's next: The industry needs to "get more stakeholders around the table and … figure out where everybody converges," Turner said.

Content from the sponsor's remarks:

"The world is increasingly complicated," Roblox CEO David Baszucki said, and "designing for the busy parent is really important" when it comes to keeping children safe online.

• "We're really excited [about] establishing what we call a global gold standard for healthy, safe, age-appropriate gaming," Baszucki added. "We continue to be optimistic about the future."