“According to my training data, AI keeps getting compared to faith.”

On the surface, Religion and AI appear to have very little in common. Religion deals with salvation, transcendence, and ritual, while AI is a technological tool built with algorithms, datasets, and increasingly expensive semiconductors. Yet the language around AI is increasingly religious. Even Geoffrey Hinton, the purported “Godfather of AI,” has warned that his creation has “godlike” potential, and many media outlets have pointed to concerns of an AI apocalypse.

Let’s look at some numbers. Unconfirmed figures suggest that ChatGPT already has around 800 million weekly users, more than the world’s Buddhist population (500 million), approaching Hinduism (1.1 billion), and over half the size of Catholicism (1.4 billion). It’s not census data, but it does position ChatGPT as the world’s fifth largest religion.

I don't actually believe that AI is a religion. Yet the comparison keeps resurfacing. Watching Tucker Carlson interview OpenAI’s Sam Altman, I was surprised to hear Carlson insist that artificial intelligence was “obviously a religion... very clearly a religion.” He went on to say that “this is a technology that provides a more certain answer than any person can provide. So it’s a religion.” The OpenAI leader, elevated to Pope Altman, was obviously surprised by the claim, and pressed him to clarify in a palpably awkward exchange.

AI Preachers

The problem with Carlsons claim is not that AI is very clearly not a religion, but that it points out disturbing parallels between religious and capitalist social needs. It has already been positioned as an object of religious devotion. Tech engineer Anthony Levandowski appointed himself Dean of his own religious ‘Way of the Future,’ in 2017, relaunched in 2023. The controversial ‘robot Church’ claims to be a new religious movement devoted to the worship of a super-intelligent AI, though the initiative seems to have struggled to get off the ground. Instead, people are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence chatbots to enhance productivity tasks; agentic AI’s are roleplaying as software engineer, proof-readers, customer service representatives, and much to the warnings of psychologists, as therapists.

As a scholar of lived religion, I naturally felt compelled to put this question to ChatGPT itself. It responded in a detached, human-like tone:

“AI isn’t a religion, but it can act like one. People treat it with faith-like devotion, seeing it as an oracle, a saviour, or even a threat. While it’s just technology, the awe and belief around it often resemble religious patterns.”

It turns out that the role of the pastor may also be under threat. During a two-month experiment in 2024 called “Deus in Machina,” a Church in Lucerne, Switzerland, installed an AI avatar Jesus within the confessional booth, trained on theological writings, to answer questions and seek spiritual guidance. The reviews on AI Jesus were somewhat mixed, and some felt that Avatar lacked depth beyond throwing up religious clichés. Meanwhile, Twitch user Ask_Jesus hosts a 24/7 question and answer stream with the prophet. The avatar, which appears to depict a traditionally white, American Jesus, currently has 87.1k followers. While I was there, someone asked about which commandment was the most fun to violate, why potato chips were bad for you when they were just so good, and how to explain the importance of personal hygiene to a friend. The AI interface also spoke about the problem of suffering, the human condition, and homosexuality, all while, somewhat incongruously, promoting Donkey Kong Bananza on Nintendo Switch.

Digital Grief

The next arena where prompted religion emerges is grief. The shocking assassination of Charlie Kirk, political activist and founder of conservative non-profit movement Turning Point USA, has also led to a vast outpouring of ‘digital grief.’ Charlie Kirk, who was well-known for his deep Christian faith, was fatally shot during a debate at Utah Valley University on September 10. In addition to global condemnation, Kirk’s death has sparked a rise in religious-based application of AI tools. Platforms such as X (formerly Twitter) were inundated with AI generated images and videos memorialising Charlie in dialogue with Jesus. The materials have also included the recently deceased Pope Francis, as well as other martyred political figures Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King. Generated images have also circulated of Kirk comforting Iryna Zarutska, Ukrainian refugee in Charlotte, North Carolina, who was also fatally killed in an unprovoked attack in August 2025.

His assassination has sparked a number of megachurches to include AI in their services. It was reported on X that several pastors, including Pastor Jack Graham of Prestonwood Baptist Church, Texas, played an AI generated clip of Kirk delivering a posthumous message. The memorialisation, which led to a standing ovation from the congregation, included the words: “I’m Charlie. My faith cost me my life, but now I stand forever in glory.” These uses of AI, though perhaps unsettling to some, points to the range of emerging tools built to support Church services, as well as its integration in the practices of believers. Furthermore, it shows that, increasingly, AI is functioning as a religious medium that is shaping religious practices of grief.

Prompted Religion

While Believers are unlikely to be swapping the divine to worship data any time soon, it is rapidly becoming a dominant interface for how religious and ethical ideas are interpreted, disseminated, and lived. I use the term ‘Prompted Religion’ to describe practices where religious meaning, authority, and ritual emerge through prompted interactions with AI. This has real implications for how we study lived religion going forward. I suggest that these interactions point us to the emergence of a new focus in the study of Lived Religion in which AI-mediated interactions increasingly emerge and influence our understandings and practices of religion.

The dynamic relationship between religion and AI catalyse their co-construction of religious practices. We need to remember that the influence of religious ideas works two ways. Research shows political biases shift across different AI platforms, and that this often creates an echo chamber around the user. This means that, much like the globalisation of religious ideas results in the adaptation and fragmentation of religion at local levels, believers using AI will experience these tools subjectively. Similarly, Large Language Models (LLMs) are trained on user data, meaning that the algorithm’s interpretations of religious ideas also become resources for the models themselves. These factors contribute to the opaque algorithm of the platform.

What is at stake, therefore, is not whether AI is a religion, but how easily it assumes religion’s authority. AI is, in effect, capitalism you can talk to. Millions now “ritually” consult ChatGPT not only for practical, everyday guidance, but also for epistemological reflection and moral deliberation. This extends into religious services, decision-making, and even mourning. Perhaps most worryingly of all, it elevates figures like Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Safra Katz beyond the role of technologists, and shifts the ideological power held by religious institutions towards these platforms. As such, the question is not “Is AI a religion?” but how much authority religions are willing to outsource to these platforms of late capitalism, and how religion will, in turn, shape their economic practices.