Learn what conversational agents are, how they work, and how teams use AI-powered assistants in Slack to automate tasks, answer questions, and boost productivity.

Current conversational agents (CA) have seen improvement in conversational quality in recent years due to the influence of large language models (LLMs) like GPT3. However, two key categories of...

Background: Empathy is a critical component of effective mental health care communication. Positive perceptions of empathy in conversational agents (CAs) operating in the healthcare domain are needed to enhance the quality of care provided by these emerging technologies. Objective: This study investigates how demographic characteristics of individual users affect their perception of empathy in a mental health helpline service context. The impact of vocal cues engineered within nine CA prototypes is the focus of this study. Methods: A group of psychology students (n=306) were presented with several CA prototypes, and their perceptions of empathy were evaluated via an online survey. Perceptions of empathy were rated using the Perceived Emotional Intelligence (PEI) Scale and the Rater Scale (RS10). Results: A linear mixed model for PEI showed significantly higher ratings for high than low engineered empathy levels (t(8)=-2.34, p=0.048), and for participants of Asian and the Other category rather than Oceanic ethnicities (t(285)=2.54, p=0.01 and t(286)=2.25, p=0.03 respectively). RS10 ratings were also significantly higher for high rather than low engineered empathy levels (t(8)=-2.45, p=0.04) and for participants of the Other category rather than Oceanic ethnicities (t(284)=2.24, p=0.03). Women also showed significantly higher RS10 ratings than men (t(283) =1.94, p=0.05). Conclusions: Recognising empathy levels in CA prototypes proved challenging, highlighting possible complexities involved with voice-based empathy detection. The perception of empathy may also be affected by different ethnic and gender-based factors. The study findings emphasise the importance of personalised empathic communication by CAs with users based on their ethnicity and gender in the context of mental health helpline service provision

Current conversational agents (CA) have seen improvement ...

Background: Conversational agents (CAs) are increasingly used in #MentalHealth care to enhance access and engagement. However, their safe, ethical, and user-sensitive design remains a challenge. Despite growing attention to trauma-informed #Approaches in human-computer interaction, there is limited work on how the trauma-informed care (TIC) framework could be #Applied in the design of #MentalHealth CAs and no comprehensive synthesis to date. Objective: Guided by the Substance Abuse and #MentalHealth Services Administration’s TIC framework, this scoping review explored how TIC principles (safety; trustworthiness and transparency; collaboration and mutuality; empowerment, voice, and choice; peer support; and cultural, historical, and gender issues) are currently represented in the design and evaluation of #MentalHealth conversational agents (MHCAs) and identified gaps and opportunities to promote more trauma-informed design practices. Methods: Online databases, as well as a secondary survey of citation lists from an initial search, were used to identify English-language journal articles and conference proceedings from 2000 to 2024 that empirically evaluated an independent, web- or #App-based, unassisted CA used for #MentalHealth and included concepts from TIC. Results: Our analysis included 38 publications (n=28, 73.7%, published in 2020 or later) covering 28 distinct MHCAs. Most studies used experimental methods (n=23, 60.6%) or user studies (n=11, 28.9%), with samples skewed toward female (men: mean 34.92%, SD 18.64%), young in age (mean 32.52, SD 14.6 y), and predominantly nonclinical (n=29, 76.3%). MHCAs were largely rule-based prototypes. No studies explicitly referenced the TIC framework as a guiding lens for MHCA design or evaluation. A total of 26 studies referenced terminology from TIC core principles but rarely defined them, while all 38 included language that could be linked to one or more principles. Overall, TIC-related concepts #Appeared most often within intervention design descriptions, qualitative assessments, or as items embedded in questionnaires evaluating broader constructs. Trustworthiness and transparency, safety, empowerment, voice and choice, and collaboration and mutuality were comparatively well addressed, while peer support and cultural, historical, and gender issues were largely absent. Design recommendations, where present, were relatively broad and emphasized secure, customizable, reliable, human-like, and context-sensitive MHCAs that offered multimodal interaction, goal setting and tracking, and transparency. Conclusions: Studies did not self-identify as using Substance Abuse and #MentalHealth Services Administration’s framework for TIC, making it more difficult to identify its elements. The fragmented terms, disciplines, and metrics used make it difficult to draw more systematic conclusions about the current research landscape related to TIC, but our analysis indicates TIC to be a descriptive and potentially unifying framework and provides a starting point for the explicit trauma-informed MHCA research and design.

ALT: a woman in a judge 's robes is pointing at someone