The chatbot, featuring an AI-generated profile photo of a smiling woman surrounded by palm trees, also said I will get married soon, that I have a pink aura and that I may have been an herbalist in a past life. Urban Mystic is one of more than a dozen bots on the mobile app Your AI Psychic, which offers live, allegedly psychic readings via chat, video and voice calls as well as palm reading, astrology chart analysis and daily horoscopes. The app works on a coin system: each question costs 4.06 coins to ask.
Users can purchase packages ranging from $9.99 for “a quick question” (82 coins) to $99.99 (1,180 coins) for “ongoing guidance and clarity” from an AI psychic of their choice. Your AI Psychic joins an increasingly crowded space of mobile apps and websites promising users algorithmically generated spiritual insight and knowledge of their futures. The divination industry, like mathematics research, copywriting, software engineering, and a host of other professions, is facing upheaval amid the AI boom – and human practitioners are scrambling to respond.
The rise of AI is particularly fraught in a profession offering spiritual products that are not well-regulated. Professional human psychics, who frequently make use of the social network’s live features, have expressed consternation and warned that computer-generated readings lack the empathy and human connection they say are central to psychic communication, especially Elon Musk’s Grok. Meanwhile, according to human spiritual practitioners, AI-generated horoscope readings and spells have been flooding Etsy, which serves as a popular marketplace for divination products.
Psychic practitioners have begun adding “no AI” clauses to their advertisements to combat a market being saturated with computer-generated offerings. In a recent vlog on the topic, Kellett said, “ignoring AI and how it could impact our industry is irresponsible … AI is here to stay, and it’s going to change our industry, and maybe not in the ways we think.” Kellett, who coaches new practitioners on accessing their psychic abilities, said she has shifted her teaching toward how to best distinguish human-offered services from AI, as AI readings passed off as human work have become “rampant” online, encouraging clients to post videos and photos of themselves to prove they are not bots. As the rise of users turning to AI chatbots for therapy underscores, many people feel more comfortable sharing personal problems with a faceless entity.
But as with turning to AI for therapy, using AI psychics to process difficult situations may worsen mental health crises, practitioners warn. Studies have shown that large language models (LLMs) can amplify paranoia in users vulnerable to psychosis. On TikTok Live, many human psychics, as a rule, refuse to answer questions about health or finances, arguing that high-stakes decisions should not be made in these contexts.
Ahna Hendrix is a psychic who, instead of channeling entities such as spirits from other realms, works with the Akashic Records – an extra-dimensional “database” of energy and human knowledge. She said her practice is centered on empowering clients rather than making decisions or recommendations for them – something that AI chatbots are less inclined to do. If we start outsourcing that, what are we left with?” A chatbot does not have to be branded as a psychic to serve a divination function, noted Sally Applin, a consultant and anthropologist who researches human agency, AI and automation in the context of human systems.
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