Abstract
Conversational generative AI has rapidly reached majority adoption among U.S. adolescents. These systems now provide advice, emotional support, academic assistance, simulated social interaction, and opportunities for identity exploration at a critical phase in development when mental health needs are rising and capacities for self-regulation, autonomy, and social competence are still developing. Scholars and clinicians have raised urgent questions about what these systems do to adolescents, and early findings point to both benefits and risks. In this article, we ask what adolescents do with AI and introduce the concept of adolescent agency over conversational AI use: the degree to which adolescents purposefully direct, critically evaluate, and set limits on their engagement with conversational AI. Existing constructs such as AI literacy and AI self-efficacy describe what young people know or believe about AI and the risks associated with its use, but they do not capture how adolescents exercise agency across areas of their lives. We identify nine processes that arise at the intersection of conversational AI’s features and key developmental tasks during the period of adolescence, which we label AI-ERA: autonomy, identity, emotion regulation, relationships, and achievement. We distinguish this agency from existing constructs, including agentic engagement with AI and AI overreliance, and then propose how it is shaped by adolescents’ developing capacities, adult scaffolding, and peer influence. We conclude with implications for families, schools, clinicians, and researchers, as well as considerations regarding the design, regulation, and ethics of AI systems.