As hundreds of schools implement an automated monitoring tool, educators say that students can find talking to chatbots ‘more natural’ than confiding in a human

• Produced in partnership with EdSurge

The alert came around 7pm.

Brittani Phillips checked her phone. A middle school counselor in Putnam county, Florida, Phillips receives messages from an artificial intelligence-enabled therapy platform that students use during nonschool hours. It flags when a student may be at risk for harming themself or others based on what the student types into a chat.