Can AI help your relationship? What 1,000 married people said

A 2026 survey of 1,000 married adults in the U.S. asked a question most couples haven't said out loud: are you using AI on your marriage? The answers were bigger than anyone expected, and they point to a problem that's easy to fix.

The numbers

• 64% had searched online for help with their marriage before talking to their partner about it.
• 33% felt AI tools "get" their relationship struggles better than their spouse.
• 28% had made a financial decision based on AI or online advice without telling their spouse.

Separately, a RAND-led study published in JAMA Pediatrics in June 2026 found that 19.2% of 1,009 people aged 12 to 21, surveyed in November 2025, reported using AI chatbots for mental health advice.

Read that again: "before talking to their partner"

What stands out is less that people use AI for relationships and more how: alone, first, and sometimes instead. A third felt AI tools understood their relationship struggles better than their spouse. More than a quarter made a money decision based on AI or online advice without telling their spouse.

None of that is the AI's fault. A private chat is private. But it means the most common way people use AI on their relationship is also the way most likely to make it worse: one-sided, secret, and, because the AI only hears you, quietly on your side.

So can it help? Yes, if you're both there.

Used together, the same tool does something different. When both of you are in the room, the AI can't take your side because it's hearing both. It can say what each of you is asking for. It can do the math on the trip-versus-credit-card fight out loud, for both of you, at the same moment. There's nothing to hide because there's nothing hidden.

That's why SharedChat's Relationships room is written, in plain terms, never to pick a winner, and why it's tested to send someone to real help rather than "compromise" when a situation is unsafe.