When Technology Gets Personal

I was circling a business decision for months without realizing I was circling it. The kind of loop where you think you're making progress bc you keep revisiting the problem, but you're actually just landing in the same spot every time and convincing yourself the scenery is different.

I tried one of the AI therapy tools — not as a replacement for anything, just curiosity — and within about two minutes it mapped the loop. Showed me where I kept getting stuck. Asked a question that reframed the whole thing in a way I hadn't considered.

A human therapist probably would've gotten there too. Eventually. After several sessions of me talking around it the way I tend to. But the speed & precision of the pattern recognition was something I hadn't experienced before, and it made me pay attention in a way I hadn't w/ previous tools.

I want to be clear about something: AI should never replace a human therapist. There's a version of this conversation where people hear "AI therapy" and imagine replacing the human relationship at the center of real psychological work, and that's not what I'm talking about. I'd be worried about any tool that positioned itself that way.

What I'm talking about is access. And the gap between who needs mental health support and who can actually get it is one of the most urgent problems I've seen in 15 yrs of working on performance & mindset.

This isn't abstract for me. I've sat w/ athletes who were drowning psychologically and couldn't get an appointment w/ a sports psychologist for three months. I've had founders pull me aside after keynotes — "I haven't slept in weeks and I don't know who to call" — w/ a look in their eyes that told me this wasn't casual. I've watched people in my own life struggle to access care that was either too expensive, too hard to find, or carried too much stigma to pursue.

The mental health system in this country is broken in ways that are hard to overstate. Waitlists are months long. Insurance coverage is inconsistent at best. Rural areas are deserts. And the people who need help most urgently are often the ones w/ the fewest resources to get it.

Executives in the front row of my keynotes have therapists & coaches & advisors. The person watching a clip on their phone during a lunch break doesn't.

Can AI actually help close this gap?

For millions of people right now who can't see a therapist — bc of cost, geography, waitlists, stigma, or all of the above — having something available at 2am when the anxiety is worst and there's nobody to call, that's not a replacement for therapy. That's a bridge to it. Or in some cases it's the only support they're going to get, and something is better than nothing if the something is built responsibly.

The "built responsibly" part is where the conversation has to be. Mental health data is the most sensitive information a person can share. Your fears, your thought patterns, your vulnerabilities, the stuff you'd never say out loud to anyone — that's what these tools are collecting. If the companies building them don't treat that data w/ the gravity it deserves, the harm could be significant.

A few things need to be non-negotiable. If someone is in crisis, the system needs to escalate to a human immediately. Privacy needs to be ironclad, not just a marketing claim. Cultural sensitivity that doesn't assume everyone processes emotions the same way. And ongoing clinical oversight — not just at launch but continuously.

I don't have all the answers here. I'm still learning, still forming opinions, still figuring out where I land on some of the harder questions. But I know the need is real bc I see it every week. And I'd rather engage w/ the complexity of it than pretend it's not happening.

That loop I was stuck in, by the way — I eventually worked through it w/ a person, not a machine. But the machine is what showed me I was stuck in the first place. I think there's something in that.

If you think about this kind of stuff too — the intersection of performance, technology, and what it means to take care of your mind — I write about it in my newsletter.

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--AAO