Introducing Sonia, your AI therapist
The three D-INFK graduates Lukas Wolf, Dustin Klebe and Chris Aeberli, are the visionary minds behind "Sonia", a mental health app that provides mental health support to students.
Lukas Wolf, Dustin Klebe and Chris Aeberli, who all obtained their Bachelor's degree in Computer Science at ETH Zurich, introduce their new app Sonia - an AI mental health therapist who conducts entire therapy sessions both by voice and text via phone. Sonia offers three free sessions to all users, but for ETH students, Sonia is completely free.
The inspiration for the app came from a common belief among the three graduates: that prioritising mental health should be as integral as maintaining physical well-being. Their conviction solidified during their time at ETH and while working in research labs at MIT, where the pressures of academia prompted them to reflect on their mental resilience. Artificial intelligence and especially the unprecedented cognitive abilities of large language models have given rise to a whole new wave of applications. Determined to practice what they preach and to leverage these new technologies to make mental health services more accessible to everyone, the three graduates developed the app Sonia.
The app
Sonia is an AI mental health therapist who conducts entire therapy sessions both by voice and text and offers structured cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) sessions or short intervention chats if you need to something off your chest. Sonia is here to listen, support, and teach techniques that help you along the way. CBT is an evidence-based, widely applicable type of psychotherapy that can be used for a range of conditions, from anxiety and depression to substance abuse- and eating disorders. With Sonia, users can practice behavioral therapy techniques such as thought reframing or problem-solving, without inducing the high costs associated with traditional therapy. Beyond just talking to Sonia, users also have the opportunity to track their mood over time.
The founders mention that users who have been to therapy before reported that their interactions with the app help them keep up with practicing healthy behaviors. Talking to Sonia works well for people with early symptoms of anxiety, depression, or burnout, but it’s not a replacement for a human therapist.
Free access for ETH students
Sonia offers three free sessions to all users, but for ETH students, the app is completely free. After you complete the free sessions, to get your free access code, just send an email with the subject "SoniaETH" from an ethz.ch email address to . For devices such as iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, you can download Sonia via the external page App Store. The developers are currently working on making the app accessible to Android users as well.