Alongside vs Cass

Alongside is a wellness platform for K–12 schools, founded in 2022, with self-guided tools and clinician-built coaching chats. Its student service is designed for grades 4–12, while Alongside for Educators offers self-help resources for faculty and staff. Students can chat confidentially about challenges 24/7 and receive clinically informed techniques drawing on CBT, DBT, ACT and mindfulness. They can track moods, set goals, journal, watch mindfulness and social-skills videos, and complete personalized exercises covering more than 50 common issues, including friendships, self-esteem and anxiety. Schools can add universal mental health screeners and social-emotional competency assessments, and school and district dashboards report usage and student concerns. For detected suicidal ideation risk, the described response can involve a standard assessment, connection to 988, notification of school personnel and safety planning. Alongside says AI is not used for universal screening or crisis-severity assessment. It is available in a browser and through iOS and Android apps. The service is self-help, not therapy, medical advice, treatment or a crisis service; screening does not provide a diagnosis.

Cass is a web-accessible AI mental-health assistant offering wellness chatbot support around the clock. People can use SMS or Facebook Messenger without downloading an app, creating an account, or joining a waitlist. Its knowledge engine covers 800 topics and more than three million variations. Cass offers personalised conversations, recommendations, resources, surveys, guided exercises, follow-ups, goals, referrals, and self-assessments including GAD-7 and PHQ-9. It flags crises, verifies severity, and can engage a crisis professional within 20 seconds. Users may connect on demand with 5,000 coaches across all 50 states, and the service supports seven languages. Cass can be embedded in websites, portals, Google Home, Instagram, WhatsApp, and other channels. It provides an insights dashboard with database or EHR integration. Cass states HIPAA compliance and SOC 2 certification, with encryption and daily server audits, but communications through SMS, Messenger, and WhatsApp are outside HIPAA coverage except Signal.