Opinion: What happens to online discussion forums when AI is the first place people turn?

The familiar dynamics of those communities took a turn about three years ago, when conversational AI tools like ChatGPT entered the public sphere and quickly captured widespread attention. — Pixabay

No doubt social media and online discussion forums have played an integral role in most everyone’s daily digital lives. Today, more than 70% of the US adults use social media, and over five billion people worldwide participate in online social platforms.

Discussion forums alone attract enormous engagement. Reddit has over 110 million daily active users, and an estimated 300 million use Q&A forums like Quora per month, and 100 million per month use StackExchange. People seek advice, learn from others’ experiences, share questions, or connect around interests and identities.