Our Journey to Becoming an AI-Powered Mental Health Business

Gavin Wade
06 December 2024

Content
- The Challenge with Scaling Quality Care
- The Opportunity of Generative AI
- Introducing Nova: Our AI Wellbeing Coach
- The Impact of Nova
- Looking Ahead
We need workplace mental health support now more than ever. With burnout on the rise, and presenteeism-related loss of productivity costing a trillion dollars to the global economy annually, the human and economic case couldn't be clearer.
For nine years, Unmind has been at the forefront of delivering world-class mental health support to users through science-backed content and therapy solutions.
We have always been immensely proud of our comprehensive approach, which has provided valuable resources and professional support for individuals seeking to improve their mental wellbeing.
The Challenge with Scaling Quality Care
While our combination of content resources and therapy services has helped countless people, we recognized a fundamental challenge in the mental health space: scaling high-quality care.
In an ideal world, every employee would have access to one-on-one support through therapy and coaching—interventions that we know can be truly transformative. However, the reality is that offering this level of care at scale is cost-prohibitive for many organizations, and ensuring consistently high-quality support across different geographies and cultures presents its own challenges.
In 2023, the world began to see the rise of Generative AI (Gen AI) as it hit the headlines and sparked a wave of innovation across various industries. Many companies quickly jumped on the bandwagon, integrating AI into their products, often in a tokenistic manner—more as a marketing strategy than a genuine enhancement.
For some, it became a glorified search engine, offering little more than rehashed content. This superficial approach to AI integration was disappointing, as it failed to leverage the true potential of AI to make a meaningful impact on users' lives.
The Opportunity of Generative AI
At Unmind, we saw something different. For us, Gen AI presented a real opportunity to revolutionize how we support mental health at scale. It wasn't about jumping on a trend or finding a new way to charge more for our services. It was about addressing the fundamental challenges of accessibility, scalability, and quality of care.
By providing people with engaging, evidence-informed support whenever they needed it, in a way that helps them develop strategies for wellbeing in real-time, we had a vision as to how Gen AI could further Unmind's mission to get people the right workplace wellbeing help at the right time.
We were uniquely positioned to take advantage of this opportunity. With over nine years of experience in workplace mental health serving some of the largest brands in the world and 700 hours of content, we had a deep well of expertise to draw from. Our goal was to build an AI-powered wellbeing coach that could complement our existing services, creating a comprehensive ecosystem where AI and human providers work in harmony.
Introducing Nova: Our AI Wellbeing Coach
In November 2023, after months of development and rigorous testing, we launched Nova, our AI-powered wellbeing coach.
Nova represents the culmination of our journey toward creating a more scalable, accessible mental health support platform. But Nova is more than just a chatbot or a search engine—it's a coach, designed to guide users through their mental health journey with empathy, understanding, and expertise.
Our science team worked hand-in-hand with the product team to ensure that Nova was not only safe but also met the high standards our global customer base had come to expect from Unmind. We knew that moving towards an AI-driven solution would come with its own set of challenges and skepticism. After all, when it comes to mental health, trust is paramount.
The Impact of Nova
Since Nova's launch, we have rolled it out to 91% of our clients, and the results have been nothing short of remarkable.
Early adopters of Nova had a month-on-month retention rate that is triple that of non-Nova users. They interacted with Unmind 176% more frequently and spent an average of 1 hour and 48 minutes on the platform each month, compared to just 28 minutes for non-Nova users.
These metrics are not just numbers; they are a testament to the impact that personalized, interactive support can have on mental health. Nova has transformed how our users engage with their mental well-being, providing them with a tailored experience that adapts to their needs in real-time.
Looking Ahead
While we are thrilled with the early success of Nova, we see this as just the beginning of our journey. There will always be skepticism about the role of AI in mental health, and that is something we take seriously. We are committed to continuously refining and improving Nova, ensuring that it not only meets but exceeds the expectations of our users. In doing this, we will always follow our Principles for Safe, Ethical and Responsible AI development (aligned to and informed by the WHO Ethical Principles for the Use of AI); in addition to ensuring we remain safe and effective, these also ensure we respect the sensitivity of privacy and security that people rightly expect with regards to data about their wellbeing.
The journey to becoming an AI-powered mental health business has been one of learning, innovation, and dedication to our mission of making mental health support accessible to all. Nova is a significant step forward in our commitment to provide comprehensive mental health support at scale. It enhances our existing offerings, creating a robust ecosystem where AI-powered coaching works alongside our content resources and therapy services.
As we look to the future, we are excited about the possibilities that AI offers. But more importantly, we are proud of the impact that Nova has already had on our users' lives. This is more than just an upgrade—it's a new way of thinking about mental health support, one that is scalable, accessible, and most importantly, human at its core. The results and the feedback speak for themselves, and we can't wait to see where this journey takes us next.
To find out more about using AI for mental health support within your business, check out our free guide, The AI Advantage for Mental Health: Your guide to employee care at scale.