Beyond Social Media: Public Health Governance of Artificial Intelligence-Based Chatbots Used by Adolescents

AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude are rapidly becoming part of adolescents’ everyday lives. Yet despite their growing role in providing companionship, advice, and even mental health support, these systems remain largely absent from public health discussions on digital regulation. We argue that AI chatbots should be understood as emerging public health technologies. By "public health technologies," we refer to technologies that, due to their scale, design, and capacity to influence health-related behaviours, wellbeing, and access to care, warrant governance based on public health objectives, rather than only consumer protection or innovation concerns. AI chatbots increasingly meet these criteria in terms of scale, design, and influence on behaviour.