AI Mental Health Coach for Ollie AI
The Problem
Mental health support has a scalability problem. Traditional therapy is expensive, appointment-based, and inaccessible for millions of people who need help right now — not in two weeks. Meanwhile, existing self-help apps offer generic advice that doesn't adapt to the individual.
Ollie AI came to us with an ambitious vision: build an AI-powered mental health coach that could deliver Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) techniques in real-time, personalized to each user's specific triggers, symptoms, and progress — while also connecting them to human therapists when needed.
The platform needed to handle sensitive mental health data with care, incorporate emergency response protocols, and provide actionable therapeutic exercises — not just generic chatbot responses.
Context
Ollie AI operated at the intersection of healthcare and artificial intelligence, where the stakes are uniquely high. Users engaging with the platform were often in vulnerable states — dealing with anxiety, burnout, or negative thinking patterns. The system had to be empathetic, clinically informed, and reliable.
The challenge wasn't just building a chatbot. It was building a therapeutic tool that could identify anxiety triggers, guide users through structured CBT sessions, and know when to escalate to a human counselor.
Approach
AI Mental Health Engine
We built the core conversational AI on GPT-4o with Langchain orchestration. The system was designed to go beyond simple Q&A — it conducts structured therapeutic sessions using CBT frameworks, adapting its approach based on the user's emotional state and history.
Key capabilities:
- Interactive CBT sessions targeting negative thinking patterns
- Personalized coping strategy recommendations
- Emergency response detection and counselor escalation
- Session continuity — the AI remembers past conversations and tracks progress
Mental health AI requires extreme care around safety. We built multi-layered detection for crisis situations, ensuring users in distress are immediately connected with human counselors and emergency resources.
Therapist Platform
We built a full therapist marketplace where users could browse, filter, and book sessions with licensed professionals. The platform supported filtering by area of concern, language, insurance provider, and availability.
The booking system integrated directly with therapist calendars, and session notes fed back into the AI's understanding of each user — creating a unified care experience between AI coaching and human therapy.
Personalized Analytics & Launch
One of the most impactful features: a personalized mental health dashboard that tracks key wellness metrics over time. We built scoring systems for:
- Mental Health Score — overall wellness indicator
- Grit Score — resilience and perseverance tracking
- Burnout Index — early warning system for workplace burnout
- Session Tracking — progress visualization across AI and therapist sessions
For organizations, we added employer-level wellness monitoring — aggregated, anonymized data that helps companies understand and support their teams' mental health.
Architecture
The tech stack prioritized security, real-time capability, and LLM flexibility:
- Frontend: Next.js with responsive design for mobile-first access
- Backend: Next.js serverless API routes for secure data handling
- Database: Supabase for real-time data sync, user profiles, and session storage
- AI Layer: GPT-4o via Langchain for orchestrated CBT sessions with memory
- Analytics: Custom scoring engine for mental health metrics and trend analysis
Results
The platform launched with a CBT-based AI coach that tailors sessions to each individual's anxiety triggers and symptoms. Users engage in interactive exercises designed to challenge negative thinking patterns, build coping strategies, and enhance resilience — all tracked through quantified wellness metrics.
The therapist marketplace created a seamless bridge between AI-guided self-help and professional human support, ensuring users always have access to the right level of care.
Next Steps
Ollie AI continues to expand its therapeutic capabilities, with plans to add support for additional evidence-based frameworks beyond CBT. The team is also exploring integration with wearable health devices to incorporate physiological data into wellness scoring.