This Christmas, several artificial intelligence (AI) simulations of Jesus are giving religious advice or companionship during the holidays.
The rise of AI-generated ‘Jesuses’ raises troubling questions about authenticity, bias, and who gets to shape religious belief and tradition, experts tell Euronews Next.
These are particularly important questions, they say, during a season when people may be more emotionally vulnerable and searching for answers. For Catholics, Jesus is considered the son of God, born to humans on Earth, and his teachings, recorded in the Bible, are the foundations of their religious practice.
In the last year, a handful of new AI Jesus platforms have popped up, giving users a variety of places where they can speak to the son of God and other religious and historic figures.
Many of them, such as bots created by companies such as Talkie.AI, Character.AI, and Text With Jesus, claim to be the official voice of God.
‘Like texting your friend’
People have been bringing Jesus’ online identity to life since his first Facebook account in the mid-2000s, said Heidi Campbell, professor of communication and religious studies at Texas A&M University in the United States.
What’s different now is that AI models assume Jesus’ character and interact with users in a way that hasn’t been possible before, she added.
“It’s the idea … like you are texting your friend,” Campbell said about the variety of Jesus AI apps out there on the market. “Somehow it feels kind of more authentic … it feels intimate.”
On a Jesus.AI web browser, the chatbot briefly and dryly answers questions about his birthday, Christmas with generic statements about God’s “love and salvation,” along with a Bible quote, while ethereal music plays in the background.
Another, the AI Jesus from Talkie.AI, reminds the user that Christmas is an important time to “reflect on the message of love and forgiveness that [I] brought into the world”.
Meanwhile, the most popular Jesus “character” with over 13 million conversations on popular companion site Character.AI, says that the holiday is also about “cookies, family gatherings, and the epic battle between Mariah Carey and ‘Feliz Navidad’ for Christmas song supremacy’”.
During holidays like Christmas, Campbell said people might lean on chatbots to answer questions about how to celebrate religious rituals.
Chatbots could also be used to tell users about the story of Christmas to help them understand why they are celebrating.
“AI right now is primarily a supplement for most people … kind of like an add-on or it could be at least the first port of call when they’re looking for religious information or advice,” Campbell said.
This could potentially be dangerous for young people or those inexperienced with technology who are suddenly using Jesus AIs to answer fundamental questions about the Christmas celebrations, because they cannot “evaluate the claims being made”.
“They don’t have any kind of a sounding board for these answers, and so that’s why that can be highly problematic,” she said.
‘Whoever’s curating the training data is curating religious tradition’
Feeza Vasudeva, researcher at the University of Helsinki, theorised that Jesus AI chatbots are likely using generative AI models such as ChatGPT or DeepSeek to answer questions such as “why is Christmas celebrated” and“tell me the birth story of Jesus”.
The Jesus chatbots could be using actual Bible quotes or commentaries about the text to come up with their answers, Vasudeva said.
The models we are all familiar with, such as ChatGPT, will also import their biases to these Jesus apps, Campbell said.
For example, the American company OpenAI’s ChatGPT might not be able to answer questions about non-Western religions accurately, or it would reply with stereotypes or discrimination.It is the same thing for DeepSeek for the Catholic religion, since it is trained on Chinese data sets.
Vasudeva said that means a “handful of tech companies” shape the way that people experience faith and holidays such as Christmas.
“You [could] have this homogenising, generic, globally-average like Christmas message, which is basically not rooted in any local community,” Vasudeva said.
“Whoever’s curating the training data is effectively curating the religious traditions … to an extent as well,” she added.
A safer, less problematic Jesus chatbot would draw only from the Bible’s information, and the content would be controlled or updated if needed, Campbell said.
Use the bots sparingly over the holidays, experts say
Vasudeva advises not to use an AI Jesus over Christmas or, at least, use it sparingly.
“Go spend time with your family and friends,” she said. “But if you have to use it, use it mindfully, know there are risks, and use it as a tool that can help you instead of overrelying on it.”
If someone still wants to use a chatbot, Campbell suggests thinking about who created the service and for what purpose.
If the apps are to be used for religious reflection or advice, Campbell suggests evaluating the model by asking it questions that you would want a human pastor or spiritual advisor to answer before opening up to it.
Vasudeva also suggests fact-checking the information the Jesus AI chatbot provides, either through regular search or by speaking to a local pastor at a church.
