(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- This chatbot, which runs on Facebook Messenger, asks users to record their moods each day and offers to teach behavioral techniques meant to combat depression and anxiety.
Innovator
- Alison Darcy
- Age: 39
- Chief executive officer of Woebot Labs Inc., a 10-employee company in San Francisco
1. Chat
Type “Hey, Woebot,” and the software offers a sympathetic synthetic ear, asking, “Can you describe to me how you’re feeling?” and “So tell me, what’s your energy like? High? Middle? Low?” From there, it guides users through therapy exercises.
2. Test
The chatbot asks users to watch videos or take quizzes to help internalize the therapy exercises. In a 70-person trial of college students, chatting with the bot significantly decreased participants’ depression scores.
Origin
Darcy, a clinical research psychologist at Stanford University with a background in coding, began working on Woebot in July 2016 as a way to offer therapeutic techniques to people who lack access to traditional counseling.
Tweaks
If you don’t like learning over video, tell Woebot, and it’ll stop sending video links and stick to chatting. Woebot can also track your moods over time and recognize emotional patterns.
Revenue
Darcy experimented with a subscription model earlier this year and says she’s considering whether to make it permanent.
Support
In October, Darcy named as Woebot Labs’ chairman Andrew Ng, the co-founder of online education company Coursera and former head of Google’s artificial intelligence project.
Next Steps
Darcy is seeking outside investment to speed the development of a standalone Woebot app. “It’s exciting because it shows the potential of bridging the access gap,” says John Torous, co-director of the digital psychiatry program at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. “It’s a way to scale mental health care and reach more people.”
To contact the author of this story: Caroline Chen in San Francisco at cchen509@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jeff Muskus at jmuskus@bloomberg.net.
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