This 'emotionally intelligent' bot makes mental health accessible at scale

Wysa, an "emotionally intelligent" bot, is a virtual coach that combines empathetic listening with evidence-based therapeutic techniques making mental health accessible at scale

Sometimes we get all tangled up inside our heads, unable to move on. Similar was the case with a 13-year-old girl who had depression and tried to end her life before she stumbled upon Wysa, an AI-based “emotionally intelligent” platform operated by Touckin, a  Bengaluru-headquartered mental health start-up. “Wysa helped me hold on to myself,” says the girl. 

Wysa as a product was launched in October 2016 to create stigma-free pathways to mental health using AI. The platform was founded by Jo Aggarwal and Ramakant Vempati and it recently raised about $2million (Rs 15 crore) in a pre-Series A round led by pi Ventures, with participation from Kae Capital and others. 

“Mental health issues could well be the next big epidemic to hit the human race. Training more human therapists will not bridge the massive supply and demand gap. This is where Wysa, powered by an AI engine, comes in. It is scalable and available for anyone to chat at any time in total privacy,” says Manish Singhal, founding partner, pi Ventures.

Wysa had raised $1.3 million in seed funding from Kae Capital and angel investors in 2017.  

Product concept
 

When you are depressed, you feel like you are letting everyone down and are a burden to the world. It is hard to get out of bed. Just talking about it can help, but it means appearing weak and transferring our distress to others. According to a WHO study, in India, there is a 90-per cent treatment gap — only 10 per cent of the people struggling with mental health issues get help.  

“We wanted to make mental health easy for people like me. Wysa is an AI chatbot written by therapists that you can talk to and break negative thought cycles. It is fun and easy to chat with, and from there you can get support from a therapist via ‘anonymous’ chat as you get comfortable opening up further,” says Aggarwal. The solution has been co-designed by users and psychologists working with tech innovators to make it easy for us to get the support we need, she says.

Wysa, an “emotionally intelligent” bot, is a virtual coach that combines empathetic listening with evidence-based therapeutic techniques like CBT(cognitive behavioural therapy), meditation and motivational interviewing to make mental health accessible at scale. Wysa has evolved over 200 iterations, 80 million conversations with over a million users to co-design a new mental health experience based on what works for people, says the co-founder.

“We started with just a bot, and now also offer two live sessions and daily chat support from a therapist in addition to 24X7 support from the Wysa AI penguin. Users said they wanted to just talk and vent to the AI, and talking through that made them feel better. But longer-term change needed human intervention from a professional, which most of them couldn’t access due to stigma, availability or price. So we added therapists while still keeping it anonymous and affordable. Even the design of the therapy process was done with users,” she says.

Opportunity

According to the WHO, one in four people in the world will be affected by mental health issues at some point in his/her life. Around 450 million people suffer from such conditions worldwide. The market is estimated at $10 billion.

Road ahead

“We are looking at key underserved and high-risk communities to focus on as we grow — pregnant women, teenagers, LGBTQ members, people with autism and so on. We are also expanding with voice and multi-lingual access," she says.    

Wysa has helped over 1.2 million people from more than 30 countries, making it one of the global leaders in AI for mental health, the co-founder claims.  It is recommended by the National Health Service  in the UK, and its efficacy has been validated through a peer-reviewed study. 

While the AI chat is free, the premium includes a suite of over 100 self-care resources to help with sleep, anxiety and stress.  “People can get a therapist as their personal coach for a month for less than the cost of a gym trainer,” Aggarwal says.

On achieving break-even, she says: “It’s an asset-light business, and so far the cost of customer acquisition has been zero. So achieving break-even is not difficult.”

Software must be really intelligent
 

With increasing levels of stress in today’s youth, the need for mental health care is far in excess of the supply. Health care providers have traditionally provided outpatient consulta-tions and therapies, as well as inpatient centres for rehabilita-tion. More recently, there have been providers that facilitate phone consultations that enable a more anonymous interaction. However, these models have limitations on scale. 

A software-driven approach could address these limitations. An app may be less daunting and approachable for someone who is going through depression but not yet ready to acknowledge it. However, the solution needs to have the intelligence to appropriately diagnose and respond to symptoms that are not always evident and often complex. Moreover, it needs to have the intelligence to know when a case needs to be escalated to a human therapist.

Start-ups that effectively build a solution for mental health will address a major shortfall in the health care landscape.