Media Resources

 

You're storytellers, and we believe storytellers can change the world.

Here is our our story for you.

 

As you probably know, the best things in life seem to happen when one is trying to do something else. That’s what happened to us with Wysa. This was a side project - we were at that time building machine learning models to detect depression, using sensor feeds from the phone.

 

The detection model worked technically - with a 90% accuracy - but only 1 in 30 people actually took help from a therapist. However, the chatbot, which we had only built as a wrapper app for the sensor code, turned out to be really popular. I began to wonder what would happen if we helped people learn the skills to build emotional resilience using a simple conversation around their own situation. As we built it, we realised - everyone could use these skills.

 

Wysa sort of built itself from there. Wysa's has been driven by its users more than anyone else. Over the last two years , this has grown over word of mouth alone to a million users. Over 60 psychologists and 15,000 users have provided specific inputs to shape how Wysa helps them. 65 users have volunteered to help us translate Wysa into their language.

 

We have learnt a lot during this journey. We learnt that privacy is key - so Wysa is and will always stay anonymous. Users didn’t want Wysa to feel too much like an app, or to offer too much advice - most of the time they just wanted to be heard, so we worked hard on building Wysa's ability to listen. We found that the NHS had found Wysa useful for early support in children, so we are now building a parent coaching and anti-bullying program with a NHS mental health nurse.

 

Researchers and psychologists from all over the world helped us keep things scientific and evidence-based. People who use Wysa are sensitive and vulnerable - we're conscious of that responsibility and would love to talk you through how we manage it.

 

We hope you'll try Wysa, and help us spread the word.

We've put together a press kit that may help. Or, just contact us at [email protected]