Nearly half of UK adults happy to use ChatGPT as a counsellor, study finds
Peer-Reviewed Publication
This month, we’re focusing on artificial intelligence (AI), a topic that continues to capture attention everywhere. Here, you’ll find the latest research news, insights, and discoveries shaping how AI is being developed and used across the world.
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 14-May-2026 14:16 ET (14-May-2026 18:16 GMT/UTC)
Bournemouth University surveyed nearly 31,000 adults in 35 countries about their use of AI large language models such as ChatGPT. The results found:
41% of people in the UK and 60% globally would be happy to using AI for counselling services
One quarter of UK adults, and 50% glabally, would be happy to delegate the role of teaching their children to AI.
Globally, 45% of people would trust AI models to take on the role of their doctor.
Three quarters of people surveyed said they would use an AI chat tool as a companion and a friend.
Teaching staff from eight Spanish universities, coordinated by the Universitat Jaume I in Castelló, have contributed to improving legal certainty in the management of information by public administrations and to reconciling the right to data protection with the duty of transparency and the fight against corruption. They have done so by proposing regulatory improvements after analysing, comparing and identifying legal gaps in the various national and regional regulations governing these matters.
The study of the application of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the public sphere has made it possible to identify the challenges faced by administrations in implementing these fundamental rights, to design training initiatives to convey this knowledge to those working within them, and to improve the public service they provide to citizens. In addition, the team has provided regulatory tools to ensure compatibility between guaranteeing access to public information and protecting personal data.
In the opinion of the research team, “by ensuring that data protection is not used as a pretext to restrict transparency, access to information of general interest has been strengthened, enabling society to participate more actively in public affairs”. They also highlight as one of the most significant contributions in the field of data protection “the identification of mechanisms to strengthen the protection of individuals who report corruption”.
The impact of the project “Reconciling the right to data protection with compliance by public authorities with the duty of transparency and the fight against corruption (DATATRANSCO)”, funded by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, has extended beyond the public administration and legal sectors to others such as technology and artificial intelligence. The research team has incorporated into its analysis and comparison the European Artificial Intelligence Regulation (AI Act), adopted in 2024, which includes requirements regarding transparency and explainability (understanding how an algorithm works).
A research team from multiple institutions including the Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering (CAS), Beijing Computational Science Research Center, and Hangzhou Dianzi University has developed a new strategy to design metallic glasses (MGs) that are both kinetically ultra stable and mechanically ductile. The study shows that by engineering specific spatial patterns of oxygen atoms within a zirconium-copper metallic glass, the material can resist structural change at high temperatures (kinetic stability) while retaining the ability to deform plastically without turning brittle. This discovery effectively decouples two properties that were previously thought to be inextricably linked, opening new avenues for creating high-performance amorphous materials.
A new international study published in The Lancet eClinicalMedicine has mapped global blood transfusion practices for life-threatening abdominal injuries, highlighting significant variation in care worldwide and opportunities for health systems to learn from one another.