How Wysa Is Using AI To Make Mental Health Services More Accessible To Everyone

There’s a great quip in my favorite TV show Arrow that I think about a lot as someone who’s struggled with maintaining good mental health throughout my entire life. Without giving away plot spoilers, the saying goes “living isn’t for the weak.” I think about it a lot because it’s such an apt description for life: life is hard and it takes a strong, resolute person to push through any adversity they encounter. As I wrote recently regarding cancer, mental health struggles absolutely can be just as disabling and debilitating as any physical or intellectual condition.

The team at Wysa understands the last point. On its website, the company boasts it provides “accessible mental health for everyone, anytime.” Wysa runs a platform, powered by artificial intelligence, which “offers personalized care that’s always available, helping individuals, organizations, healthcare providers, and young people thrive.” The company sells its services to individuals through its mobile app, as well as to employers and health insurers. Essentially, if bad mental health can prove disabling—and indeed it can, trust me—then the virtual methodologies Wysa provides for therapy therefore is accessibility.

In an interview with me conducted earlier this year, Smriti Joshi, a psychologist by training and chief of clinical operations at Wysa, explained Wysa historically has been a text-based platform that has users conversing with specially trained and tuned chatbots acting as their disembodied therapist. Joshi, who’s been with Wysa for 8 years, told me while there are audio/visual therapy options nowadays, as the team built the platform 5 years ago, it became readily apparent texting was “a powerful medium” with which to deliver care. People like texting a whole lot, she said, and it’s “an effective way to connect with clients.”

Wysa began life being text-only in its methodology, with Joshi telling me it “went well” and the company quickly amassed 50,000 users before hitting a million just as fast. However fun and effective texting may be, Joshi said that, as Wysa scaled, the team eventually decided a better strategy was moving to a hybrid model with the textual component being complemented by what amounts to FaceTimes or Zoom calls between clinician and client. From a clinician’s point of view, leaning on technology—particularly texting—makes it such that therapists need not wait until the next session to follow up on care with their client(s).

When asked who exactly Wysa is for, Joshi gave me a version of the website’s pitch—Wysa is for anyone “who needs mental health coaching or therapy,” she said. The app is available on iOS and Android, with Joshi saying Wysa is being deeply integrated into larger practices as the main focus. Those in private practice could use it as well, but in terms of public health systems, Joshi said the National Health Service in the United Kingdom will be deploying Wysa as the first public system. Joshi called Wysa right now most beneficial to “[health] systems that have large clinical teams where they have a lot of patients they are serving and they want to track how these patients are doing.” She added tracking can be done in real-time, especially important because the AI software can help alert therapists to changes in emotional state—including the most severe such as suicidal ideation. Joshi reiterated that, clinically speaking, Wysa is “most useful” for large practices and public health systems.

What’s notable about Wysa from an accessibility point of view is not merely it’s treating mental health, but that it uses technology to facilitate it. To wit, that everything is done remotely means, for example, therapy may be more accessible to someone who’s homebound for medical reasons; it’s also beneficial for someone who may face logistical challenges in moving about in terms of transport. The same could be cogently argued on the clinical side, but it’s most poignant for people seeking care. What’s more, Joshi said users are able to complete wellness assessments in the app. This functionality is reminiscent to what Apple offers in its Health app on iOS and iPadOS, as users are able to send back the aforementioned wellness questionnaires to their provider once they opt into the Health Records feature. Filling out these forms digitally is far more accessible than doing so by hand whilst at the doctor’s office.

My conversation with Joshi coincided with Wysa Copilot’s announcement, the hybrid digital and human therapy platform Joshi espoused in our discussion. In the press release, she said in part the goal with Copilot is to “empower therapists with the resources they need to deliver personalized, effective care while improving the overall patient experience” and said the blend of AI and human oversight works well to “[enhance] both patient engagement and therapeutic outcomes.”

As to feedback, Wysa shares a slew of stories from patients on its website, all of which laud Wysa’s efficacy. For Joshi’s part, she told me healthcare systems have reported being “very pleased” with the company’s product, saying the best-liked feature is the ability to get ahold of each other outside of regular session hours. As Wysa is available 24/7, there’s constant connection for people who feel they need additional support or simply want to check-in with their therapist, and vice-versa. Ultimately, the platform encourages “a more collaborative and transparent therapeutic relationship.” Joshi acknowledged while there is deep appreciation for Wysa, there’s also skepticism; once people try it, she said, they tend to like it and are able to see how “it’s actually augmenting and complementing the work they are doing, and how and they’re feeling their patients are definitely being supported better.”

Looking towards the future, Joshi said people are understandably reluctant about AI and its power, but emphasized Wysa is not a fully-automated service. There absolutely is human oversight to the platform, whose roles involves ensuring anonymity and privacy. As AI gets evermore capable, Joshi is optimistic it will make Wysa a better tool for the betterment of mental health. It’s early days for AI, but signs are encouraging for Wysa in its mission. “I’m hopeful about how this service, or similar products on the market, are going to only increase the efficacy and effectiveness [and] accessibility for a wide variety of users,” Joshi said.