No doubt social media and online discussion forums have played an integral role in most everyone’s daily digital lives. Today, more than 70% of the U.S. adults use social media, and over 5 billion people worldwide participate in online social platforms.

Discussion forums alone attract enormous engagement. Reddit has over 110 million daily active users, and an estimated 300 million use Q&A forums like Quora per month, and 100 million per month use StackExchange. People seek advice, learn from others’ experiences, share questions, or connect around interests and identities.

In mental health contexts, online peer support communities offer a place to share and disclose personal struggles, hear others’ experiences, and receive social support. Research supports the success of these online communities, which enable people to candidly self-disclose and seek support from others.

When people engage with personal narratives on peer-support sites, they often feel more confident in coping with stressful events. At the same time, these platforms also expose individuals to online trolling, harassment, misinformation, and other antisocial behaviors.

The familiar dynamics of those communities took a turn about three years ago, when conversational AI tools like ChatGPT entered the public sphere and quickly captured widespread attention.

This marked the start of a new era of interactive AI in day-to-day lives and society. People tried recipes, coding help, emotional support, creative writing, and more. The ease of asking a machine a question, receiving a coherent response, and doing so privately sparked a new kind of engagement.

Shortly after ChatGPT’s release, Google issued a “code red,” citing the tool’s rapid adoption as a threat to traditional search behavior and the information-seeking habits that long supported online forums.

At that moment, many wondered, "What is the future of social media and online discussion forums when people increasingly turn to AI instead of each other?"

That question warrants attention because the value of online communities depends on active participation. When fewer users post questions, share responses, or react to others, the foundational mechanisms of online forums—reciprocity, belongingness, narratives of shared experience—become weaker. If a user can ask an AI privately and immediately, the incentive to engage publicly changes.

A recent report by Anthropic warns that AI models can exhibit “natural emergent misalignment,” including reward hacking— where systems learn to game feedback signals in ways humans did not intend. It’s a timely reminder that AI can sound empathetic and coherent without having lived experience or genuine understanding.

However, one of the crucial aspects of a supportive response from a peer is the presence of personal narratives and lived experiences. A systematic review noted that young people in online communities seek both informational and emotional support through stories of peers who have faced similar challenges. This suggests that narrative exchange is not simply transactional—it works when users engage as part of a community of peers, not as isolated speakers into the void.

By contrast, AI lacks lived experience. It can simulate empathy, but it cannot draw from a personal story.

In our research comparing AI-generated responses with peer responses in online communities, AI’s language was more formal, structured, and polite, but it rarely used first-person pronouns (which signal personal narratives).

Even when an AI’s replies appear personalized, they show limited diversity. Across many queries, the AI often reuses the same templates with minor variations. Online communities, in contrast, produce a range of viewpoints. Even a single question elicits diverse stories and perspectives from multiple individuals.

In a new study of teens' use of AI, results show more than 70% of teens have used AI companions, with one-third discussing serious personal issues with them rather than people.

Another survey found that 58% of users think that ChatGPT is “too nice,” and argue that the lack of realistic push-back undermines authenticity. These point to a tension: on the one hand, convenience and immediacy win; on the other, authenticity and narrative connection may suffer.

So what is at stake?

The forms of online social life are evolving. Large general-purpose platforms that once relied on high-volume question-and-answer interactions may see that function increasingly handled by AI. Participation may decline, not because people stop connecting, but because their first step becomes private and AI-mediated.

In that scenario, online community spaces may become more selective, more identity-driven, and oriented toward authentic human experience rather than mechanical problem-solving.

At the same time, platforms may adapt. Many already integrate AI to moderate content, summarize discussions, or help users articulate questions. In the future, AI may become part of the community infrastructure—filtering, guiding, even prompting human interaction, rather than replacing it.

The enduring value will be human presence: the voices of people who have lived the story, the shared recognition of someone else’s struggle, the sense of belonging created when users see that others have walked the same difficult path.

The future of social media, therefore, depends on which interactions people continue to value. Efficiency and convenience will not alone sustain the community. The presence of narratives rooted in human experience, and the recognition that someone else has faced a similar challenge, are what give forums their emotional traction. As AI becomes a more capable first responder, the discussion spaces that thrive will be those that prioritize experience, connection, and mutuality over instant answers.

In this emerging online and digital era, the question is not only whether people will use AI alongside communities—they already do. The more pressing question is how many choose AI instead of online (or offline) communities. The answer will determine not simply which platforms survive, but what form meaningful online connection takes in the years ahead.

The question then becomes, do people really need people?

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Dr. Koustuv Saha is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s (UIUC) Siebel School of Computing and Data Science and is a Public Voices Fellow of The OpEd Project. He studies how online technologies and AI shape and reveal human behaviors and wellbeing.

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