Grow Therapy, a mental health technology company, has rolled out two new AI-assisted products for its network of over 17,000 behavioral health care providers.
These products utilize ambient listening technology, aiming to create drafts of clinical notes and after-visit summaries directly from therapy sessions. This approach, sometimes referred to as “AI scribes,” is gaining traction in healthcare to potentially alleviate provider burnout and enhance patient interactions.
In an exclusive interview with Newsweek on February 12, Grow Therapy CEO Jake Cooper explained that the company opted to develop the technology internally. The goal was to help providers be more present during sessions, leading to stronger therapeutic connections with patients. Top providers were already sharing key takeaways with their patients, recognizing that reinforcing learnings from therapy sessions improves their effectiveness.
“Is there a way that we can make it easier for every one of our providers to incorporate this into their practice?” Cooper and his team asked.
Initial development involved 100 providers who helped refine the AI tools. After several months, the products expanded to a group of 3,000, and on February 5, they became available to all Grow Therapy providers.
Addressing Data Sensitivity in Behavioral Health
Behavioral health data is inherently sensitive, with personal details shared in therapy sessions. The AI tools were developed with this trust in mind, Cooper stated. The tools require dual consent, with both patient and provider needing to opt in.
Furthermore, the AI products are designed to be secure, with sessions never recorded. Only transcribed notes are stored in Grow’s system, with all data encrypted to ensure patient privacy, according to Cooper.
Pat Grady, a partner at Sequoia Capital, who leads AI strategy at the firm and also led Grow Therapy’s Series C funding round, emphasized the need for a cautious approach when implementing AI interventions in mental health. “The stakes are much higher. Trust is really important,” Grady told Newsweek.
Early Adoption and Potential Impact
In the first two weeks of full implementation, approximately 50 percent of patients opted in to use the tools, according to Cooper. He expects increased adoption as providers familiarize themselves with the tools and share their benefits with patients.
The company plans to assess the tools’ impact through various metrics, including patient satisfaction, self-reported measures of acuity, and the development of long-lasting therapeutic relationships.
Cooper additionally highlighted the potential for AI tools to reduce provider burnout. “There absolutely is burnout, with respect to both the heaviness and emotional weight providers are carrying, and respect to the multitude of administrative responsibilities they have,” he said. “We do our best at Grow to simplify practice for providers on the book side so they can focus on what they care most about, which is connecting with patients.”
Grady sees significant potential for AI in behavioral health because treatment is language-based. “The care itself is text in, text out,” Grady said. “It’s a bull’s-eye for what AI can do.”
However, Cooper reaffirmed that Grow Therapy does not intend to replace human therapists with chatbots. “We think that therapy is effective because it is human-centered,” Cooper said. “We always see the clinician being the quarterback of care and chiefly responsible for providing care to patients.”
