Talkspace, an online behavioral health company, launched an AI-powered feature on Monday that allows therapists to offer their clients personalized podcast episodes based on their therapy sessions.
New York City-based Talkspace offers virtual therapy, psychiatry and medication management. It serves both employers and health plans. With its new podcast feature, called Talkcast, therapists can provide members ages 18 and older additional support between sessions.
Therapists can identify topics discussed during patients’ sessions and have Talkcast generate an episode based on those topics. Episodes are about three-to-five minutes long and include AI-voice-generated podcast hosts that provide affirmations, guidance and strategies for mental health.
The clinician reviews the episode before sending it to the patient. The patient then receives some educational content explaining that the episode is AI-generated, as well as a prompt asking if they would like to listen to the episode. They can then choose whether or not to opt in, according to Michael Rodio, general manager of AI at Talkspace. The podcasts are available on the Talkspace app, and patients also have the opportunity to provide feedback on the AI-powered podcasts.
“We designed it for a double opt-in, so both the clinician and then the member have to decide that this is something they want to engage with,” Rodio said in an interview.
Talkcast has benefits for both patients and clinicians, noted Nikole Benders-Hadi, M.D., chief medical officer at Talkspace.
“It’s really the practice of tools and new coping skills in between sessions that helps our members get to better outcomes faster,” she said. “So the more you’re able to not only talk about the way that you should be thinking about things differently in therapy, but the more you can put that into practice in your everyday life, the more successful outcomes that we see for our members. … From the clinician standpoint, it’s really just about engagement. We don’t want our members to go to therapy week to week and then not think anything at all about what they’ve been learning and talking about with their therapist.”
The podcast feature was created in collaboration with Benders-Hadi, the compliance team and licensed providers. It was overseen by Talkspace’s AI Governance Committee.
And Talkcast is already getting positive feedback. It was first rolled out to a subset of providers, and 90% of providers and clients said the podcast was helpful. Clients stated that they “appreciated the review of topics discussed with their therapist in a familiar podcast format,” and that they “enjoyed the focus on small, incremental changes they can work on between sessions,” according to the announcement.
Several other digital mental health companies are starting to implement AI in their services. For example, in October, Headspace introduced an AI companion that uses a process called motivational interviewing, which helps people reflect and sort through their emotions.
Photo: SIphotography, Getty Images
