Cedar-Sinai Medical Centre has developed an AI-powered chatbot titled Xaia designed to complement the services of mental health therapists.
Xaia, an acronym for extended-reality Artificially Intelligent Ally, is an application for the Apple VisionPro headset that offers emotional support and conversational therapy for patients.
The chatbot was programmed by Dr. Omer Liran with research support from Dr. Brennan Spiegel and therapeutic input from clinical psychologist Robert Chernoff in collaboration with Technology Ventures.
Being programmed with hundreds of prompts and scenarios, the app provides an immersive therapy experience to the patients.
Spiegel said, “What’s amazing is she [Xaia] is using six different forms of Artificial Intelligence at any time, including her emotional expressions. She has over 140 different facial expressions that she can go through. She looks you right in the eye, she’s very interactive, but she’s not a human, and that’s on purpose.”
According to Liran, a psychologist, “Xaia is designed to supplement and not replace the services of mental health therapists amid a national shortage of providers.”
The Xaia app uses hundreds of therapy transcripts, including real and expert-crafted mock sessions to mimic actual therapist interactions.
"The application has been used by about 300 patients across various research studies at Cedars-Sinai including those grappling with chronic pain, alcohol abuse, and irritable bowel syndrome," according to Spiegel, director of health services research at Cedars-Sinai.
However, the tool is not covered with any insurance but it uses billing codes for virtual reality therapy and digital health services.
Given the rising needs for emotional support, digital health start-ups have started incorporating AI into their innovations.
According to digital health advisory firm Rock Health, digital health start-ups using AI accounted for an estimated $3.9 billion in funding in 2024, or 38% of the sector’s total. Among them, mental health was the top-funded clinical area, attracting $1.4 billion.