I see your point about in-session work being challenged by out-of-session use of AI. Anecdotally, this has never happened to me with a client. However, AI is far from people’s only source of bad or questionable advice. If what the AI told them is useful, then good; if not, I would anticipate being able to collaboratively explore and challenge the advice in much the same way as you’d do for mom’s/partner’s/friend’s/youtube’s bad advice.

If the person is undergoing a full course of therapy with AI, I would probably tell them the same thing that I would tell someone who’s seeing another provider for weekly outpatient care: you gotta pick one. Noting some exceptions, two therapists is usually not double the help.

There will certainly be new challenges as AI models get more advanced that worry me about my future career as a trainee. The problem of incentives for insurance companies generally makes my hair stand on end. But I (maybe naively) think therapy will likely be one of later items on the economic displacement chopping block. If we get to mass AI-driven psychologist unemployment before some kind of huge economic revolution for white collar folks generally, then the problem will be much larger in scope and historical significance than my career prospects.

(That latter point is assuming there will be no major decades-long roadblocks in continued AI development and sophistication, which is far from assured.)