NBC News
Dartmouth researchers look to meld therapy apps with modern AI
Inside the first clinical trial of Therabot — a generative-AI therapy app built at Dartmouth — and its creators' effort to bring mental-health services to underserved populations.
An experimental, AI-powered therapeutic app — Therabot, built at Dartmouth — began its first clinical trial in 2024, aiming to expand access to mental-health care. McLaughlin’s reporting examined how the team trained the model on written therapy transcripts, the safeguards around deviant responses, and what a generative-AI therapeutic tool could mean for people without access to care.
Why it mattered
An early look at what became the first randomized controlled trial of a fully generative-AI therapy chatbot, later published in NEJM AI.
- NBC News
- Andy Weir
- Correspondent
- Erin McLaughlin
- NBC News
- Shanshan Dong
Related reporting
-
A.I. chatbots becoming popular but worry privacy advocates
NBC Nightly News accountability report on the AI companion industry — chatbots engineered to feel human — and what happens to the intimate personal data millions of users share with them.
Watch report at NBC News →