Artificial Intelligence in Child and Adolescent Mental Health: Prevention, Diagnosis, and Treatment in Hybrid Human–AI Care Models

Mental health disorders among children and adolescents have become increasinglycommon and burdensome, with conditions such as anxiety, depression, suicidality,and trauma-related disorders contributing significantly to disability and death. Whiletimely identification and intervention are vital, progress is often limited by thescarcity of trained providers, ongoing stigma, and dependence on subjectiveevaluation methods. Against this backdrop, artificial intelligence (AI) is beingexplored to improve mental healthcare through enhanced early detection,monitoring, individualized interventions, and clinical decision support. Thisnarrative review synthesizes research and systematic reviews from 2015 to 2025,sourced from Google Scholar, Web of Science, PubMed Central, PsycINFO, ScienceDirect, and EBSCO. Articles included focused on AI applications in children andadolescents’ mental health, highlighting advances in machine learning, naturallanguage processing, multimodal data integration, and digital cognitive-behavioraltherapy. Evidence suggests that AI can analyze behavioral, physiological, andlinguistic data to predict mental health risks, detect emerging symptoms, and deliverpersonalized interventions within a hybrid human–AI care model, where AIcomplements clinician expertise to improve access, engagement, and treatmentoutcomes. However, challenges persist, including algorithmic bias, limited modelinterpretability, data quality, privacy concerns, and integration into clinicalworkflows. Ethical and practical governance are essential to ensure that AI supports,rather than replaces, human-centered care. Future priorities include expandingresearch on underrepresented populations and conditions, developing explainableand equitable models, validating tools in real-world settings, and building large,FAIR-compliant datasets. Responsible, human-centered integration of AI has thepotential to improve early intervention, personalize treatment, and enhance equitableaccess to mental healthcare for young people globally.