2025 was yet another transformative year in the artificial intelligence boom. ChatGPT was the fifth most-visited website in the world, tech companies poured hundreds of millions into refining their models, and chatbots became woven into seemingly every part of society — from assisting with legal work to offering companionship to the sick and the lonely. Here is a look back at some of the innovative ways people around the world used AI this year.
AI for health care
For many patients around the world who feel they don’t get the time or attention they need from their health care systems, chatbots have become a trusted alternative. In China, where psychiatric appointments are hard to get, expensive, and mostly paid out of pocket, particularly in rural areas, a survey of young people found that nearly half had used an AI chatbot to discuss their mental health.
When her mom became smitten with Dr. DeepSeek, Rest of World senior reporter Viola Zhou asked human doctors to review the chat logs. They said the AI bot was giving alarmingly flawed advice. But maybe her mom was after something more than just medical help: “DeepSeek is more humane,” she said. “Doctors are more like machines.”
AI is also helping to take care of aging populations, easing the workload of caregivers. Twice a week at a senior care facility in Singapore, a few dozen elderly men and women with dementia gather in a large sunlit room with Dexie, a humanoid robot, who leads their morning exercise session. In South Korea, AI companionship robots are given to seniors living alone, who treat the dolls like grandchildren.
Health care workers themselves have embraced AI: In a remote Brazilian town, Samuel Andrade, the sole pharmacist at a free government clinic serving 22,000 people, is using AI to catch dangerous errors. Developed by nonprofit NoHarm and backed by tech giants including Google and Amazon, the AI assistant has quadrupled Andrade’s capacity to clear prescriptions.
AI in the legal system
Brazil’s judicial system — among the most litigious in the world — has over 140 AI projects to cope with more than 70 million pending lawsuits. Judges are using the technology to clear their dockets faster than ever before. At the same time, those same AI tools are allowing lawyers to open more and more cases. For example, drafting a legal defense used to take 20 minutes. Now it can be done in seconds.
Can an AI chatbot change how we see criminals? That’s what researchers in Paraguay hoped when they developed Eva, a chatbot that allows people to interact with a woman in prison for drug trafficking. The bot is based on in-depth interviews about her life behind bars: where she slept, what she ate, how she filled her time.
“We wanted to build empathy between the audience and a segment of the population that’s largely invisible and excluded from mainstream media,” said the makers of Eva.
AI on the job
Creatives in Indonesia’s thriving film and animation sector are fast adopting generative AI in their work. They use ChatGPT for scripting, Midjourney to produce images, and Runway to generate short videos for storyboarding and editing. AI will cut the costs of production and make it possible to make films that match the quality of Hollywood, said Agung Sentausa, chairperson of the Indonesian Film Producer Association.
Big-name LLMs often underperform in low-resource languages, risking deeper inequality as AI becomes more common. In Mongolia, Egune AI is developing models that specialize in the country’s language, culture, and nomadic traditions, and has created AI applications for a telecom company, a bank, and several government agencies.
In Kenya, a severe teacher shortage due to large class sizes and burnout has pushed some educators to use ChatGPT and other chatbots. For Sylvia Osewe, an elementary school teacher in the Nairobi area, the bot helped plan lessons in English, social studies, and Christian religious education for her 200 students. If they find the material challenging, she prompts the AI to suggest a simpler way to teach it.
Traditionally, farmers in Malawi relied on informal, peer-to-peer learning, primarily through word-of-mouth advice passed down through generations and shared among fellow farmers. Now they are turning to an AI chatbot for instant farming advice in their own language.
“After following its recommendation, the worms were completely eliminated,” said Kingsley Jasi, a farmer who grows corn and beans. “Since then, I have relied solely on the chatbot’s guidance.”
