Dartmouth researchers look to meld therapy apps with modern AI
An experimental, artificial intelligence-powered therapeutic app that its creators hope will drastically improve access to mental health care began its first clinical trial last month.
An experimental, artificial intelligence-powered therapeutic app that its creators hope will drastically improve access to mental health care began its first clinical trial last month.
Therabot, a text-based AI app in development at Dartmouth College, launched in a clinical trial in March with 210 participants. In its conversations with users, the app uses generative AI, the same technology that powers OpenAI’s ChatGPT, to come up with answers and responses. The app also uses a form of AI that learns patterns and has been designed to enable Therabot to get to know and remember a user and provide personalized advice or recommendations based on what it has learned.
There are already a handful of script-based therapy apps and broader “wellness” apps that use AI, but Therabot’s creators say theirs would be the first clinically tested app powered entirely by generative AI that has been specifically designed for digital therapy.
Woebot, a mental health app that says it has served 1.5 million people worldwide, launched in 2017 in collaboration with interventional scientists and clinicians. Wysa, another popular AI therapy app, in 2022 received a Food and Drug Administration Breakthrough Device designation, a voluntary program designed to speed up development, assessment and review of a new technology. But these apps generally rely on rules-based AI with preapproved scripts.
Nicholas Jacobson, an assistant professor at Dartmouth College and a clinically trained psychologist, spearheaded the development of Therabot. His team has been building and finessing the AI program for nearly five years, working to ensure responses are safe and responsible.
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