Artificial intelligence has arrived in the field of mental health. Large health systems and independent therapists alike have begun to adopt different AI tools to manage the delivery of mental health treatment.

The speed of the adoption — alongside disturbing incidents of individuals using general-use AI chatbots with catastrophic consequences — is causing some concern among practitioners and researchers.

"There is a lot of fear and anxiety about AI," says psychologist Vaile Wright, senior director of health care innovation at the American Psychological Association (APA). "And in particular fear around AI replacing jobs."

Those concerns were a key issue last month, when 2,400 mental health care providers for Kaiser Permanente in Northern California and the Central Valley went on a 24-hour strike.

Triage via tech and a lower-paid worker

One of the therapists who went on strike is Ilana Marcucci-Morris.

Since 2019, Marcucci-Morris worked as a triage clinician at Kaiser Permanente's telepsychiatry intake hub. But that changed in May 2025.

"I have been reassigned from triage to other duties," says Marcucci-Morris, a licensed clinical social worker based at KP in Oakland, Calif.

The change in her role was driven by KP's efforts to revamp its triage system, she says.

"What used to always be a 10- to 15-minute screening from a licensed clinician like myself is now being conducted by unlicensed lay operators following a script," she says. "Or, an e-visit."

She and her colleagues worry that this downsizing of the triage system is paving the way for AI to take over their jobs.

At Kaiser Permanente in Walnut Creek, Calif., the triage team of nine providers has been cut to three, says Harimandir Khalsa, a marriage and family therapist, who also works as a triage clinician.

"The jobs that we did [are] being handled by these telephone service representatives," says Khalsa.

The 24-hour strike on March 18 protested these changes, among other things.

"Part of our unfair labor practice strike really is about the erosion of licensed triage within the health plan," says Marcucci-Morris.

"At Kaiser Permanente, our use of AI does not replace clinical expertise," Lionel Sims, senior vice president of human resources at Kaiser Permanente Northern California, said in a statement to NPR.

The health system, which is both a direct care provider and an insurer, confirmed to NPR that it is assessing AI tools from a U.K. company called Limbic.

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