Chatbot for Online Support Groups to Treat Tobacco Addiction

Investigators will conduct a pilot RCT to test the efficacy of an intelligent chatbot to aid small, private, quit-smoking peer support groups. Participants will be randomized to an intervention arm (chatbot-enhanced support group), or a control arm (support group only). In the intervention arm (N=60), each support group will be connected to an intelligent chatbot running on a secure local server as a trained LLM (large language model). The intelligent chatbot will function as an additional member of the GroupMe support group, but a member that only responds if no human does so. In the control arm (N=60), the support groups will be connected to an automated message-posting bot running on a secure local server. This automated message-posting bot will lack the response capabilities of the intelligent chatbot. But both the intelligent chatbot and the automated message-posting bot will post a pre-written daily discussion topic to encourage participants to discuss issues known to facilitate tobacco cessation or group bonding.

NCT Number	NCT06952725
Lead Sponsor	University of California, Irvine
Conditions	Tobacco Dependence, Tobacco Use Disorder
Enrollment	120 participants
Start Date	2026-12-01
Primary Completion	2028-06-01 (estimated)
Study Completion	2028-06-01 (estimated)
Updated on ClinicalTrials.gov	2026-05-22