Aug 8, 2017
I recently discovered a company called Woebot, and they've built a smart chatbot
(uses AI) to address the growing mental health epidemic. Woebot
lives in Facebook Messenger and operates like a personal therapist.
They launched on June 6th and their user base is already exploding.
Woebot has already seen more 'patients' than a traditional
therapist will see in their entire career. Mental health is a
pervasive problem that affects roughly 40 million people in the
US per year. Stigmas, high treatment costs and lack of
qualified therapists mean that people aren't getting the help they
need. CEO and founder, Dr. Alison Darcy and her team aimed to take
a different approach to tackle it. Sharing a few high-level details
below believe that technology can help democratize healthcare.
For Woebot, it's about leveraging conversational tech and AI to
deliver good therapy.
Woebot was built as a simple solution that can be
accessed anytime, that learns with every interaction, providing a
safe, stigma-free opportunity for people to talk about what's
happening for them and get the help they need. Woebot lives on
a social media platform that 1 billion+ people log into every day,
users can get help when they need it – rather than waiting for
their appointment next Wednesday at 3pm.
The experience with Woebot is conversational and provides
human-like feedback. Woebot also applies the most effective type of
treatment for mood disorders (cognitive behavioral therapy) and
teaches you things about yourself and the way you think about
events in your life.
I invited Woebot CEO and founder, Alison Darcy onto the show
to find out more. Darcy is also a psychologist and health care
designer with over 15 years experience in health tech. I wanted to
find more about how why she made a robot that helps people feel
happier and understand how we can use technology to develop
effective digital health solutions.