Jo Aggarwal at World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2023 | Wysa

Summary

The transcript highlights a session at the World Economic Forum where Joe Agarwal, CEO of Wisa, discusses the global mental health crisis and the innovative use of AI in addressing it. Wisa's platform offers support through AI-driven conversations, helping individuals manage their mental health. The app has reached 5 million users, with many attributing their well-being to it. Joe emphasizes the need for AI as an initial step in care, advocating for its integration into mental health support systems worldwide.

Takeaways

• 🌐 The Ideas Hub at the World Economic Forum is a space for digital members to engage in discussions on solutions for global issues, including the use of AI for mental health.
• 🤖 The Forum's strategic intelligence platform leverages human and AI intelligence to provide contextual information on various topics, aiding in understanding and action on global issues.
• 🚀 Uplink is an open innovation platform by the World Economic Forum that crowdsources solutions to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with over 57,000 users and 15,000 entrepreneurs.
• 🧠 Joe Agarwal, co-founder and CEO of Wisa, discusses the role of AI in addressing the global mental health crisis, emphasizing the importance of early intervention and support.
• 📈 The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that one in eight people suffer from a mental health disorder, with the pandemic exacerbating both the spectrum of illness and awareness of mental health issues.
• 📊 Wisa's Global Employee Mental Health Report, based on 150,000 anonymous conversations, reveals that 42% of employees felt their mental health declined during the pandemic.
• 💹 There is a significant financial cost to businesses due to unaddressed mental health needs, with estimates suggesting a loss of $30 million annually for a company with 50,000 employees.
• 🌍 Mental health costs are estimated to be 4% of GDP in OECD countries, yet most countries spend less than 2% of their health budget on mental health.
• 📱 Wisa is an AI-driven mental health app that provides support through text-based conversations, aiming to be equitably accessible to all users regardless of location or socioeconomic status.
• 🔢 Wisa has conducted randomized control trials demonstrating its effectiveness, showing better or equal performance compared to human therapist support in managing pain interference, physical function, depression, and anxiety.
• 🌟 Wisa has received recognition for its privacy practices, being named the best in privacy among mental health apps by the Mozilla Foundation.

Q & A

What is the main focus of the Ideas Hub session hosted by John Dutton at the World Economic Forum?

The main focus is on 'Innovation for SDGs: AI for Mental Health,' exploring how AI can be leveraged to address mental health issues as part of the Sustainable Development Goals.

What is Uplink, as mentioned by John Dutton in the session?

Uplink is the open innovation platform of the World Economic Forum, aimed at crowdsourcing solutions to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), engaging a community of over 57,000 users and 15,000 entrepreneurs.

Who is Joe Agarwal, and what is Wisa?

Joe Agarwal is the co-founder and CEO of Wisa, a platform focused on using AI to provide mental health support and solutions. Wisa aims to address the global mental health crisis by offering accessible and effective mental health care.

What does the Global Employee Mental Health Report by Wisa reveal?

The report, based on over 150,000 anonymous conversations from 60 countries, highlights the mental health challenges employees face, showing a decline in mental health during the pandemic and the financial and productivity costs associated with unaddressed mental health needs.

How does Wisa propose to use AI for mental health?

Wisa uses AI to provide immediate, private, and accessible mental health support, helping users to manage their mental health through evidence-based techniques and conversations, aiming to make mental health care equitable and accessible globally.

What are some key outcomes of using Wisa for mental health support?

Wisa has shown to be effective in reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression, with significant improvements noted in users after less than a month of use. It's also highlighted for its privacy practices, being recognized for responsible AI use.

How has the pandemic affected global mental health, according to Joe Agarwal?

The pandemic has led to an increase in both the spectrum of mental illness and awareness about mental health issues, resulting in more people seeking help and further stretching the already burdened healthcare systems.

What challenges does the current mental health care system face, as mentioned in the session?

The current system is challenged by insufficient access to care, long waitlists, a shortage of mental health professionals, and inadequate support for mental health, leading to significant financial and productivity losses.

What is the strategic intelligence platform mentioned by John Dutton?

It is a platform that leverages both human and AI intelligence to provide insights on over 280 topics, aimed at enhancing understanding of global issues and facilitating action among members of the World Economic Forum and its digital audience.

What does Joe Agarwal suggest as a solution to the global mental health crisis?

Agarwal suggests leveraging AI as a first step of care to address the global mental health crisis, offering an accessible, equitable, and effective solution to support mental health needs worldwide.

Outlines

00:00

🌟 Introduction to the Ideas Hub and Uplink

John Dutton, head of Uplink at the World Economic Forum, welcomes the audience to the session on Innovation for SDGs and AI for mental health. He introduces the Ideas Hub as a platform bringing digital members into the Congress Center and highlights the strategic intelligence platform used by The Forum, which leverages human and AI intelligence. Dutton emphasizes the importance of Uplink, an open innovation platform that crowdsources solutions to the SDGs, with over 57,000 users and 15,000 entrepreneurs. He introduces Joe Agarwal, the co-founder and CEO of Wisa, a company focusing on AI for mental health, and mentions a global employee Mental Health Report launched by Wisa.

05:02

🤖 The Role of AI in Addressing the Global Mental Health Crisis

Joe Agarwal discusses the global crisis of mental health, noting that one in eight people suffer from a mental health disorder, and the prevalence is even higher due to the pandemic. He highlights the increased awareness and seeking of help, which has stretched the healthcare system. Agarwal presents data from the WHO and Wisa's global employee Mental Health Report, showing the significant impact on employees and the cost to companies due to unaddressed mental health needs. He emphasizes the lack of access to care and the need for a scalable solution, sharing his personal experience with depression and the development of a three-point model for global mental health using AI.

10:03

🌐 Expanding Access to Mental Health Support with Wisa

Agarwal explains the concept of Wisa, an AI-driven mental health app that aims to make access barriers, stigma, cost, and scale irrelevant, providing an equitable solution for everyone. He details the iterative process of developing Wisa, incorporating user feedback and conducting randomized control trials to prove its effectiveness. The app has reached 5 million users, with 500 million conversations and has been life-saving for many. Agarwal also discusses the importance of privacy and the responsible use of AI in mental health, highlighting Wisa's commitment to these values.

15:05

💡 Questions and Discussion on AI and Mental Health

The audience engages with Joe Agarwal on the use of Wisa, particularly for teenagers, the business model, and the potential for voice recognition in mental health support. Agarwal addresses concerns about traditional therapy versus AI, the integration of Wisa with healthcare systems, and the plans for language localization. He also discusses the need for mainstreaming AI as the first step of care and the support Wisa needs to reach more people and improve mental health outcomes globally.

20:07

🌟 Final Thoughts and Closing Remarks

The session concludes with a reflection on the importance of AI in mental health and the potential of Wisa to transform the way mental health support is provided. The moderator thanks Joe Agarwal for his work and invites the audience to continue the conversation and interact with Wisa. The session wraps up with a call to normalize the use of AI in mental health and to move forward with embracing technology as a solution to global mental health challenges.

Keywords

💡Innovation for SDGs

Innovation for SDGs refers to the development and implementation of new ideas, technologies, or methods to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations. In the context of the video, it highlights the use of AI for mental health as a solution to contribute towards these global goals.

💡AI for Mental Health

AI for Mental Health denotes the application of artificial intelligence technologies to improve mental health support and treatment. In the video, it is discussed as a transformative approach to tackle the global mental health crisis by providing accessible and scalable mental health care through AI-powered platforms like Wisa.

💡Global Mental Health Crisis

The Global Mental Health Crisis refers to the increasing prevalence of mental health disorders and the insufficient resources and support systems available to address this growing issue worldwide. The video emphasizes the severity of this crisis and the need for innovative solutions like AI-powered mental health platforms.

💡Uplink

Uplink is an open innovation platform of the World Economic Forum that crowdsources solutions to the Sustainable Development Goals. It serves as a community and digital product acting on global issues by leveraging the collective intelligence of its users and entrepreneurs.

💡Strategic Intelligence Platform

The Strategic Intelligence Platform is a tool used by the World Economic Forum that combines human and AI-generated intelligence to provide contextual information on various topics. This platform is designed to help understand and act upon significant global issues.

💡Wisa

Wisa is an AI-driven mental health app that provides support through text-based conversations, helping users with issues like stress, anxiety, and depression. It aims to make mental health care accessible and equitable for individuals worldwide, regardless of their location or financial resources.

💡Employee Mental Health Report

The Employee Mental Health Report is a document that compiles data from anonymous conversations about mental health experiences of employees from various countries. It serves as a resource to understand the scope and impact of mental health issues in the workplace and to inform strategies for improving employee well-being.

💡Mental Health Stigma

Mental health stigma refers to the negative attitudes and discrimination faced by individuals with mental health disorders, which often leads to reluctance in seeking help or discussing mental health issues. The video discusses the importance of addressing this stigma to improve access to mental health care and support.

💡Digital Infrastructure

Digital infrastructure refers to the underlying technology and systems that support the delivery of digital services and platforms. In the context of the video, it relates to the tools and platforms used by the World Economic Forum to facilitate discussions, share information, and connect people working on global challenges.

💡Economic Impact

The Economic Impact refers to the effects of a particular issue or event on the economy, including costs and benefits. In the video, the economic impact of not addressing mental health is discussed, emphasizing the financial burden on companies and the global economy due to lost productivity and increased healthcare costs.

💡Therapeutic App

A therapeutic app is a software application designed to provide psychological support or therapy to users. These apps often use techniques like cognitive behavioral therapy to help individuals manage stress, anxiety, or other mental health concerns. In the context of the video, Wisa is described as a therapeutic app that uses AI to guide users through mental health challenges.

Highlights

John Dutton introduces the session on Innovation for SDGs and AI for mental health at the World Economic Forum.

The Ideas Hub brings together digital members and physical attendees to discuss solutions for global issues.

Uplink is an open innovation platform by the World Economic Forum that crowdsources solutions to the SDGs.

Joe Agarwal, CEO of Wisa, discusses the global mental health crisis and AI's role in addressing it.

Wisa's Global Employee Mental Health Report reveals insights from 150,000 anonymous conversations.

The prevalence of mental health disorders is higher than previously thought, especially during the pandemic.

Healthcare systems are strained, with long wait times and limited resources for mental health support.

Mental health struggles can lead to significant financial costs for companies and economies.

Wisa aims to provide equitable access to mental health support regardless of location or economic status.

AI can serve as an initial step in mental health care, offering support and guidance to individuals.

Wisa has conducted randomized control trials showing its effectiveness in improving mental health outcomes.

The app has reached 5 million users and conducted 500 million conversations, with many attributing their well-being to Wisa.

Wisa prioritizes privacy and has been recognized for its responsible use of AI in mental health.

Wisa is available in multiple languages and aims to expand accessibility to regions with limited mental health resources.

The business model of Wisa includes partnerships with employers, healthcare providers, and public health entities.

Wisa's approach is to normalize AI as a first step in mental health care and to shift perceptions about its capabilities.

Values and service play a role in mental health, and Wisa incorporates behavioral activation aligned with personal values.

Wisa has considered using voice analysis but prioritized user privacy and comfort over diagnostic features.

John Dutton thanks Joe Agarwal for his presentation and encourages further interaction on the topic.

Transcripts

foreign

good morning and welcome to the ideas

Hub my name is John Dutton I'm the head

of Uplink at the world economic forum

and we're pleased to have you here for

the uh session Innovation for sdgs I AI

for mental health

a couple quick words about this session

about this space the ideas Hub is a

space where we were bringing for the

very first time the audience of our

digital members into the Congress Center

and we're really excited to have a whole

series of sessions that's talking about

Solutions many of them from our series

of Uplink innovators that are here now

two other things I want to talk about

around our digital infrastructure at The

Forum first uh the the tool that you saw

just before I I clicked through here is

our strategic intelligence platform

something that's open to all of you as

members of The Forum and to our digital

audience of course it is leveraging both

human and AI machinery and intelligence

to bring to life more than 280 different

topics it's providing that contextual

intelligence for us to make sense of the

big issues in the world and for us to be

able to act on them and one of the

communities and and other digital

products that is acting on those issues

is Uplink Uplink is the the open

Innovation platform of the world

economic Forum we are crowdsourcing

solutions to the sdgs there is more than

57 000 users on the platform 15 000

entrepreneurs and some of the best of

them have become part of our Innovation

Network and we're really thrilled to

have Joe Agarwal the co-founder and CEO

of Wisa who is here with us today to

talk about AI for mental health I also

you know it's never right to come to a

session without a prop uh what I have

here today a QR code that I'd love to

pass around to you it is about a report

that was just launched by Wisa the

global employee Mental Health Report uh

that it just this this week in fact

they've gotten more than 150 000

anonymous anonymous conversations from

60 countries telling about what our

employees going through when it comes to

mental health so I'd love to pass this

around and allow you guys to

um to to click into that and without

further Ado let me introduce Joe Agarwal

please join us on stage and tell us all

about Wisa

the clicker is right here

hi everyone I'm going to talk to you

about the global crisis of mental health

which if you're here you probably

already are aware of but also very

surprising solution that AI is the first

step of care can bring to the global

Mental Health crisis

now what we know from the who is that

roughly one in eight people suffer from

a mental health disorder but what we

know from the people around us from our

own workplace from our families is that

the prevalence of people with distress

is much much higher

in the pandemic we have seen

both the illness Spectrum grow but also

the awareness more people have started

coming to forth talking about their

mental health issues more people have

started seeking help and the already

stretched Health Care system has been

even more stretched I think all around

you you will be seeing either people who

are talking to their managers about

their issues and not getting support or

long wait lists

again from the who you have a 25

increase in the prevalence of major

depressive disorder or anxiety disorder

from our own analysis from the global

employee Mental Health Report we have

seen four 42 percent of employees say

that their mental health has declined

during the pandemic in fact we've mapped

the conversations people have had 150

000 conversations from employees in 60

countries and we've mapped that and

people talking about symptoms of

depression we can see roughly one in

three employees are suffering from

feelings of sadness and depression in

fact you'll see a flip between Europe

and the rest of the world where Europe

doesn't talk as much about sadness and

depression but it does talk a lot more

about Stress and Anxiety so between

stress anxiety sadness and depression

you're seeing

employees talk about these feelings and

many of them from our research are

saying they don't tell their managers

they don't seek help until it's really

late because they have a very limited

amount of support and this costs

companies so there is a financial cost

to this

even if we don't look at the human cost

for a moment which we need to there is a

significant financial cost to not having

adequate support of mental health for

people

um going back again to the who sorry

um

going back again to the who they

estimate a trillion dollars in Lost

productivity absenteeism 12 billion work

days lost but again if you look at our

own data we see that

employees who may not even be diagnosed

with a mental health illness but are

struggling are not able to perform are

already losing the company money by the

time they actually access an EAP and in

our own estimates

um we have found that a company with say

50 000 employees is roughly losing 30

million dollars every year just on

account of unaddressed mental health

needs

and at the same time there is

not enough access to care even if people

wanted to give unlimited access to care

they're not enough therapists to go

around a large part of the world lives

in places where there is one

psychiatrist for every 250 000 people

so we have a very uh

very very few mental health

professionals that could provide human

support but even in parts of the world

where you have more uh availability of

care you have long wait lists in places

like the US the UK there is a struggle

where pairs are providing sessions

they'll give you 10 sessions and that's

not how Mental Health Works you don't

access a session knowing that you will

have only 10 sessions and you have to

get better by then so you need some kind

of model where you can actually get

unlimited support and feel like you're

being supported not being treated

differently just because you have a

mental health disorder

so overall in oecd countries

it's estimated that mental health costs

four percent of GDP but most countries

spent less than two percent of their

health Budget on mental health so it's a

place where there's very little

investment

it's also a place where we can't afford

to wait for investment because at the

end of the day everything that we're

doing is so that we can Thrive as humans

and if we can't Thrive if we don't

address our mental health and we keep

waiting for Investments it's not going

to work so I set out to try to solve for

Global mental health while struggling

with depression myself

I was so convinced that I was going to

fail at no matter what I did I said let

me try to fail at trying to do something

worth it

and I had a three-point model

um it's been seven years now and the

first three years I wanted to build a

solution that made

access barriers irrelevant stigma

irrelevant uh cost irrelevant scale

irrelevant something truly Equitable

that

a person who is in sub-Saharan Africa

could access as much as someone working

at Goldman Sachs something that would

work equally well for both of them and

the idea was for me then that I was more

ready to open up to AI because I can

talk to you about my mental health

issues now but one hour later when I'm

feeling the same way and an hour later

for the next two months even my own

spouse can't listen to me talking about

my depression and you need some place

where you feel supported that you can go

at 2AM and talk and I wanted something

that would guide me through how to

restructure the negative thoughts all

the evidence-based techniques that I

could feel supported so when you think

about AI don't think about it as another

entity think about it as your own

resource to work through things in your

own head and that's really where your

mental health app happens we built this

for three years iteratively with users

coming back to us and and saying this is

not working for me lots of young people

saying where there's power differential

I don't want to reframe a negative

thought because that's the only control

I have in the situation and then we

changed how the clinicians told us what

else we could say to them and

iteratively we prove to ourselves that

it works then we started proving it with

the top researchers in the world so we

had randomized control trials with

payers who said people who went off work

due to an injury came back to work 30

percent faster after they used wiser we

had trials with chronic pain where we

compared human therapist support with

therapists with wiser support and we

showed better or equal performance with

pain interference with physical function

and depression and anxiety with wiser

horses versus a human therapist and

finally now what we're beginning to do

is bring that access back to the people

who need it the most we're training this

in Hindi we're bringing it on WhatsApp

and taking it to people who have had no

other access in the world

we're today at a scale of 5 million

users 500 million conversations

232 people have written to us to say

that they're only alive today because

they found this app most of them found

that for free in all over the world

these 232 people come from over 30

countries in the world

we've received a lot of awards but the

one I'm most proud of is not the way

forward but the one in the middle there

which is there was a recent expose by

Mozilla Foundation which is the Watchdog

for privacy about the issue with mental

health apps out there the footnote and

the expose was that there are few apps

that get it right and

wiser was the best of privacy amongst

those

so it's important for us to do AI

responsibly and we've been able to do

that I'm just going to show you very

quickly

um what wiser really does so uh

this is a person coming into the app and

starting to talk about things that are

not necessarily about depression just

about their feelings

the white is AI

it's helping this person reframe what

they're thinking

it's helping them

open up but people open up to AI three

times faster than they do to a human

therapist

and the reason let's go back to our

employees and the reason those employees

in our report uh we've seen don't seek

support is all of these so these are all

your access barriers they think they're

too embarrassed they don't think they'd

be taken seriously they may not get an

appointment they don't have time all of

these get addressed when you have

something on your phone and you can

immediately start talking and it might

be that you need something a little more

than AI but then we can then guide you

and say actually now take this

assessment and actually you need to get

an appointment much sooner and those

people who need that help can have many

more sessions because they need those

and others who can be helped by AI can

be helped by themselves and this is how

you can sort of restructure the way we

have these limited resources to go to

those who need it the most

these are some of the clinical outcomes

so uh orange you see people with severe

symptoms of anxiety and green are

moderate

um this is when people start and after

they use Visa for just under a month you

will see that the people with severe

symptoms you see a smaller reduction but

people with moderate symptoms a lot of

them don't need anything else so you can

see that both with anxiety as well as uh

with depression

um

you you have a range of people who will

still need human care but a range of

people who actually now don't need

anything else because they're being able

to be helped by wiser alone

that's me from visor we're trying to

solve for Global mental health we're

trying to bring the voice of these 500

million conversations that people have

had which are telling us what works for

them what doesn't work for them onto

forums like this through the employee

Mental Health Report we're doing similar

reports for different cohorts within our

system

um please help us by putting the word

out there by changing the narrative on

Mental Health uh by saying there's a

solution out there that can work if we

can bring AI to the first step of Care

thank you

well

well congratulations first off on

launching the report on all the success

thus far for Wisa and and really most

importantly the lives that you are both

saving and supporting and trying to you

know humanize a lot of of these issues

um it's really important work Joe

um I you know listen we've got a packed

house here uh we'd love to hear from you

invite in

um any questions remarks it's great to

have uh a Buddhist monk here who is

leading every morning our mental

Wellness sessions in the Congress Center

but would really invite the audience to

interact with with Joe and Wisa and

these issues of mental health and how AI

can support it any questions or comments

and I'd just love to introduce I'd love

to ask you to introduce yourself please

go ahead

um as you uh as you make your comment or

question

hi uh can you hear me yes we can hear

you uh I'm Inez I'm from United World

colleges and uh my question is this is

seems like a fantastic too uh with

something that we've been fighting for a

while with not great resources my

question is

um how good or how would you recommend

the use of wiser to teenagers

that teenagers have been our first

cohort so about 30 percent of our users

are young people at least under the age

of 25. we do have a cut off above 13

just for uh you know Parental Guidance

reasons we don't think that they should

be on a phone by themselves without

Parental Guidance under 13. but um

there there are studies uh which we've

done with schools and I can share those

with you

one and a half years after we launched

um a mental health nurse from the

National Health Service uh in the UK who

didn't have enough resources to give all

the people who needed help told us that

for especially uh teenagers with ADHD

teenagers with autism but a lot of these

teenage boys who weren't willing to be

in support groups this was the only

thing that worked that they were willing

to text naturally the Privacy that it

gave them and they would a third of them

would say they needed nothing else

thank you for that and you have a lot of

influence across all the colleges uh so

hopefully this is something we can bring

to them as well please here in the front

yes uh my name is Kenneth Edwards I'm

executive director for the California

Association for licensed professional

clinical counselors I represent the

trade Association that represents

thousands of counselors across the state

of California and I know when I take

I've had the pleasure of meeting Joe

over the last couple of days but when I

bring weisa to our counselors I know

that the first criticism will be wow

this isn't traditional therapy this

isn't traditionally what we know uh

Works to help with mental health I see

the data I'm a Believer

what would you say to those counselors

um for the counselors we've built a

therapist companion so they can go on to

that platform and send their patients

versions of Visa a person comes to a

counselor once and then maybe in a week

maybe in a month and they need to work

on their mental health all the time so

think of this as the next evolution of

the worksheets the counselor would have

given them and the support but more

beautifully all of that conversation

that they have with Visa you're not

relying as a counselor now on them

remembering what happened but why is

this creating a report and giving it

back to the counselor and that's how for

instance the National Health Service in

the UK users as well integrated with

their IAP system

other questions reflections

please Stefan

I was curious Joe you mentioned uh the

uh language localization in Hindi and I

was wondering uh a how you do that and

what the resources are and how scalable

that is because I would presume that

that is one of the big issues for Global

scalability absolutely it um it was

easier to we first did Spanish and then

we did Hindi Spanish was easier because

there is a language for depression and

anxiety in Spanish so English to Spanish

it's still adjacent even then the way

people talk about suicidality is so

different so those models have to be

redeveloped from scratch some models you

will just take the data and uh you know

you will Google translate it or a

version of of that and then put it

through your AI model in English and

then see what the variance is but other

models you have to just develop all the

way from scratch so we have a team in

Argentina that works on developing our

Spanish models similarly we have a team

in India it has to be redeveloped with

local clinicians and with local

volunteers so in Spanish alone we had 18

000 volunteers from Weiser in English

who said they want to help us do it and

and so it's become a movement of people

who have told us that you know we want

it in our language we're going to help

you then clinicians come on board then

we Grace some grant funding in low

resource languages and we start

investing in that

and what's the next language that's

coming

well we're going to do Hindi and then

and then we have a sort of for-profit

track for French German and a non-profit

track for other low resource languages

still in India and can you talk for a

minute about the business model for for

wiser yes of course

um

so wiser for employers is something that

for instance Accenture uses for its

employees all over the world we have

large Healthcare players using it for

their own employees and also offering it

to their patients we have pairs uh Swiss

tree has done a partnership with us

where they've built a version of wiser

to help prevent mental health issues in

the insurers that they ensure and also

help people come back to work sooner

each of these have a clear Roi case so

we get either as a part of a

preventative Wellness solution or as a

part of one of the elements of care

after somebody has been diagnosed or is

onamber on red we will be able to

monetize that public health people like

the NHS or Ministry of Health in

Singapore then use versions of Wisa to

help them reduce the wait lists help

them increase that amount of support and

there is a free version of wiser on on

the retail app where we do a freemium

where people who take human coaching pay

for those who are using Wisa for free

okay wow

um and I guess the the obvious follow-up

question for many of us who've been

inspired is kind of what help do you

need are there things either this week

or in kind of longer term what what are

what are some of the things that that

wiser needs to try to reach more people

and and help help help them prevent or

support their their Mental Health

we we need a

at a forum like this we need to be able

to create the category of AI as the

first step of care there's so many

perceived Notions about AI thinking it's

generative this is clinically safe this

is not generative AI uh but within that

you need to be able to understand we

have so many therapists you need a lot

of care it's urgent and AI is the first

step of care can solve the problem but

it's not yet mainstreamed into the rfps

it's not yet mainstreamed into how

people expect to solve the problem so we

have a lot of people ringing their hands

saying there is a problem there is no

solution and here we are doing all the

clinical evidence proving the business

case we have an economic case we have

the ROI it's not yet mainstream what I'd

love to do is ask you to

start normalizing it to say yes there is

technology it has its place and and can

you please now move on to it

well other questions from the audience

uh let's see one right here

hi I don't mind introducing yourself

before you make your question sure I'm

Dr Monty pry from the BBC and also the

author of the values compass and my

question is related to values and mental

health do you think that as a population

in fact if we focused especially for our

youth to focus on their values and to

focus on values such as service

and community and others that maybe

um we could embed those type of values

within wiser absolutely I we take values

a little differently than the moral

values you're talking about but uh

thriving in life is very much about

living your valued life so understanding

how you value living and then doing that

every day rather than giving up how you

value living and hoping that one day

you'll achieve a place where you can

start doing that so values are a very

core part of even the behavioral

activation that we do to say every day

can you do something that aligns with

the way you value living and that might

be something that gives you Joy and for

some people that is service and that

sense of accomplishment but some people

it's music and that's fine too

last question reflection please okay

do you mind introducing yourself to the

audience as well yes so I'm sure

Matsumoto uh the member of Civil Society

and also the facilitator of meditation

here

and uh uh so my question is about the

way

to you know to uh of conversation this

is via text right but in my experience I

offer in Japan uh for the for the

employees in the company to have

opportunities to have a conversation

with monks and also for well-being and

we use AI emotion uh the recognition you

know algorithm to to see the con

condition of the voice

so uh

so do you have any you know idea to use

those this app not through text but uh

voice so that you can yeah you can know

the conditions through the text the

content but the three Voice without

seeing the content just looking at the

you know the the quality of the voice

you'd see many things so absolutely so

if you weren't able to hear in the

audience the question was about whether

or not

the There's an opportunity to use voice

in addition to text to assess the

um the sound and kind of how somebody is

feeling based on their vocal cords as

well

it's a very valid question we have

struggled with this for a bit we decided

not to be a diagnostic app we decided

not to go down the path of telling

people whether how severe their

condition is without we give them an

assessment and that is it we are more

the therapeutic app so it's actually

providing that support that they need

people tend to feel when when we analyze

their voice they tended to feel less

safe

they tended to start modulating their

voice so that the app doesn't uh you

know think that they're more severe so

the whole Focus was in working with

users to give them a space even if we

use their data to say look like you

didn't sleep very well last night based

on their phone they would start feeling

less safe they would say oh somebody's

tracking me so we took all of that cool

AI out and gave them what they needed to

be able to feel that this was Private

this was safe and we want to do voice

because not everybody has a smartphone

so we want to be able to at the end of a

phone line do text to voice but for now

uh Text to Voice doesn't work in a

clinically safe way so we've stepped

away from that and messaging works

really well because there might be

somebody who's struggling right now in

this room and they could be sitting and

messaging wiser and it gives them that

sense of privacy which otherwise in many

families even if you think about low

income countries you don't have a space

where you can talk aloud and not be

heard by anybody else private space is a

privilege that very few people have

well let me on behalf of it I think

everybody here in the world economic

Forum Uplink Joe thank you for the work

you're doing uh thank you to all of you

in the room but also those of you who

are live streaming here uh as part of

our virtual program uh it's really

meaningful for you to have taken part in

this session uh invite you to interact

with Joe you can also find her on

LinkedIn on the Uplink platform

um and thank you for being a part of

this uh this wraps up the session and

we're gonna uh wish you all a fantastic

day thank you very much

thank you Joe

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