Microsoft announces support for three innovative mental health services harnessing artificial intelligence (AI)

Through our work in the Microsoft AI for Acces­si­bil­i­ty pro­gram, we have learned there are big gaps in men­tal health ser­vices around the globe. In some coun­tries, there may only be one men­tal health pro­fes­sion­al per 100,000 peo­ple. When paired with the real­i­ty that 1 in 5 peo­ple have a men­tal health con­di­tion, we are ask­ing how tech­nol­o­gy can and should be involved. In Feb­ru­ary, we shared our call for project pro­pos­als that aim to accel­er­ate men­tal health research, data insights, and inno­va­tions using AI, and today we want to high­light the projects we’re sup­port­ing. Keep read­ing Microsoft Acces­si­bil­i­ty blog, includ­ing how to apply to fur­ther grants, Here.

The 3 fea­tured projects are:

1. Adap­tive text-mes­sag­ing with Men­tal Health Amer­i­ca: “Text mes­sages can reach every­one with bite-sized infor­ma­tion and prompts, and to increase people’s engage­ment, machine learn­ing algo­rithms will be used to dis­cov­er how to cus­tomize the con­tent and tim­ing of mes­sages. By com­bin­ing clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gy, human com­put­er inter­ac­tion, and machine learn­ing, they hope to design inter­ven­tions that are eas­i­ly deliv­ered, effec­tive, and engaging.”
2. Under­stand­ing empa­thy in text-based peer sup­port: “While under­stand­ing the time and fre­quen­cy for when a per­son wants to engage with men­tal health prompts is impor­tant, the tone and lan­guage of mes­sages plays a unique role. The Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton, in part­ner­ship with Talk­Life and Sup­port­iv, are build­ing a nat­ur­al lan­guage mod­el to under­stand empa­thy in text-based peer support.”
3. Deliv­er more impact­ful ser­vices in India: “Geor­gia Tech, work­ing with Befrien­ders India, is devel­op­ing a dash­board and mod­els intend­ed to match cri­sis line callers with vol­un­teers based on demo­graph­ic and socio­cul­tur­al char­ac­ter­is­tics, the needs and issues of the callers, and the lived expe­ri­ences of the volunteers.”

News in Context:

• Three ways to pro­tect your men­tal health dur­ing –and after– COVID-19
• Debate the Future of Men­tal Health in North Amer­i­ca: In ten years, will we see DSM‑6 or Some­thing Much Bet­ter (SMB?1)?
• Solv­ing the Brain Fit­ness Puz­zle Is the Key to Self-Empow­ered Aging
• Five rea­sons the future of brain enhance­ment is dig­i­tal, per­va­sive and (hope­ful­ly) bright