Can Artificial Intelligence Enhance European Emerging Adults’ Psychological Adjustment? A Scoping Review

TL;DR

This review explores how AI can help European emerging adults adjust psychologically during adulthood transitions.

Contribution

It highlights the underexplored use of AI for psychological support in European emerging adults.

Findings

AI applications for mental health are increasing but remain scarce in Europe.

Few studies on European emerging adults show promising potential for AI tools.

More research is needed to understand AI's benefits for European youths' mental health.

Abstract

Empirical studies support the difficulties European youths encounter when transitioning into adulthood, as well as several economic and social constraints that make the acquisition of a full adult role complex and challenging, with relevant implications for psychological adjustment. In this direction, international research showed the effectiveness of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in promoting mental health adjustment, although most studies are limited to the field of clinical psychology for diagnosing and preventing the onset of pathological problems rather than on non-clinical populations. Furthermore, only a limited number of studies have been conducted in European Countries in comparison to Asian and American countries. Accordingly, this scoping review aims to provide an overview of studies conducted in Europe on AI applications for psychological support to promote psychological adjustment in emerging adults who face the challenges of reaching adulthood, often associated with stress and pressures that increase the likelihood of developing psychological problems. Out of 167 initially selected articles for the period between 2015 and 2025, only six articles were included for the final synthesis, according to explicit inclusion and exclusion criteria, and among them, only three studies were conducted on emerging European adults using different AI tools to provide support to their psychological adjustment. Results from these studies support, first, that despite the significant increase in the AI applications for mental health, their use is still scarce in the European context and specifically to promote emerging adults’ adjustment; second, that despite the scarce applications of AI tools in this sense, results from the few studies are promising regarding the potential AI applications. Future research should better investigate the effects of AI tools to understand their benefits in promoting the mental health of European youths, considering the challenges that they face in going through adulthood.

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