STAT+: Therapy chatbot study lands with a thud

You’re reading the web edition of STAT’s Health Tech newsletter, our guide to how technology is transforming the life sciences. Sign up to get it delivered in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday.

The cat’s outta the bag: People are already using LLM-based chatbots like therapists whether it’s a good idea or not. Nevertheless, companies building customized therapy chabots must still convince critics their bots are safe and effective.

To that end, a new preprint about Slingshot AI’s therapy chatbot Ash offers some of the first evidence about the safety and benefits of the app. In a 300-participant study, Slingshot claims, the app helped drive improvement in depression and anxiety symptoms as well as in other measures of wellbeing. The company also says the app passed a rigorous safety evaluation and that Ash’s safety guardrails worked 100% of the time.

Continue to STAT+ to read the full story…