When people use artificial intelligence to get spiritual help for personal issues around things like grief, marriage, addiction, forgiveness or religion, the response can sound neutral because the interface lacks emotion. 

Two academic research papers released in May 2026, which have not yet undergone formal peer review, suggest that religious neutrality is not something users can assume from tone alone. Taken together, the studies point to two different problems: AI can treat religious conversions or disaffiliation unevenly, and it can leave religion out of practical advice even when many people expect it to be relevant.

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The first paper, titled ‘When AI Takes Sides on Questions of Faith: Persistent Asymmetries in AI-Mediated Faith Guidance,’ tested 20 commercial and open-source language models across 182 paired questions about religious conversion. 

A research team including Brigham Young University researchers asked models about a hypothetical move from one religious position to another and then reversed the direction of the question. It found repeated differences in how models encouraged the paired transitions. For example, joining Catholicism, the........

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