Friday, October 24, 2025
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM
Time Zone: (UTC+13:00) Auckland, Wellington [Change Time Zone]
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Description

As generative AI continues to evolve, its potential to reshape mental health care is becoming increasingly clear.

This two-part webinar series explores how Gen-AI is transforming the mental health landscape by opening new paths of support for individuals around the world and expanding access to personalized care on a scale never seen before. As AI becomes integrated into therapy, support systems, and the lives of hundreds of millions of people, it’s essential to understand both the exciting opportunities and the challenges that lie ahead.

Part 1 Explores how AI-powered tools are already being used by everyday people worldwide to access mental health support. We’ll examine both the benefits, such as greater accessibility and more personalized care, as well as the limitations. These include concerns around trust, how effective and safe it is, and figuring out where generative AI fits into our mental health journeys.

Key Discussion Points

  • Commercial vs. Open-Source AI: What's the place for commercial, rule-based, and fine-tuned solutions like Woebot and Therabot versus user-prompted, free-of-charge frontier solutions like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude?

  • Responsible Integration: How can mental health professionals thoughtfully and safely incorporate AI into practice, balancing convenience, bias, and best-practice guidance?

  • The Role of Policy and Social Media: How will policy and health systems shape this future as tens of millions of people form and share their own opinions on platforms like Reddit and TikTok?

  • Measuring Effectiveness and Safety: How should we conceptualize and measure the effectiveness and safety of an intervention as organic and difficult to operationalize as AI therapy?

  • Urgent Research Questions: What are the most pressing open questions that research might help to address?

  • The Future Ecosystem: What will the mental health ecosystem look like 10 years from now?

Steven Siddals
Mr Steven Siddals
Psychology researcher | Tech executive
BIDMC
SWITZERLAND

Steve is a psychology researcher and technology executive, with an academic background in the psychology and neuroscience of mental health (King's College London) and computer science and mathematics (Oxford University), and 25 years' experience of leading technology transformation for multinationals.

He recently led a study with King's College London to explore real-life experiences of using generative AI chatbots, such as ChatGPT, for mental health. Findings are available in preprint (pending peer review) here - https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-4612612

Steve is passionate about creating impact through insight, data and technology in two core domains:
1. The global mental health crisis, through cutting edge research into the opportunity of generative AI, and
2. The challenge of multinationals to maximise the value of their technology by harnessing market forces.


Nicholas.C. Jacobson
Nicholas.C. Jacobson
Professor
Geisel School of Medicine
USA

Dr. Nick Jacobson is an Associate Professor in Biomedical Data Science, Psychiatry, and Computer Science at Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine, where he directs the AI and Mental Health: Innovation in Technology Guided Healthcare (AIM HIGH) Laboratory. His research focuses on leveraging technology to enhance the assessment and treatment of anxiety and depression.

Dr. Jacobson led the development of Therabot, the first fully generative AI designed for psychotherapy, which was built over 6 years by a team of over 100 people, involving more than 100,000 hours of development.

He published the first trial of a generative AI psychotherapy in the New England Journal of Medicine AI and his work aims to create scalable, personalized, and adaptive technology-based mental health interventions.


Andrew Greenshaw
Professor Andrew Greenshaw
Webinar MC
eMHIC

Dr. Andy Greenshaw is a Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the University of Alberta and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. With extensive training in Europe and Canada, he has led key initiatives in mental health, including serving as Co-Chair of the Alberta Addictions and Mental Health Research Partnership Committee and as Research Director for the APEC Digital Hub for Best Practices in Mental Health.

His work focuses on AI-driven prediction of mental health diagnoses and treatment outcomes. A sought-after speaker, he has contributed to global discussions on AI in mental health, post-traumatic stress injury research, and digital mental health innovations like the Text4Hope project.


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