Alongside vs Psychia

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.

Psychia is an AI-powered mobile app for everyday emotional support and a private place to talk through personal concerns. It is available at any time, and conversations do not require an appointment. Its assistant draws on psychologists’ and psychotherapists’ knowledge and uses Solution-Focused Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy methods. Text conversations are included on every plan; voice conversations are available with Max. The free Lite plan offers unlimited text conversations, but may queue during busy periods and stores up to five conversations in history. A free account includes a three-day trial, and guests can start a conversation with a limited number of messages. Psychia supports Polish, English, and Ukrainian. The maker says information is stored in an AWS database and encrypted using AES-256, and that conversations are private and accessible only to the user. The maker also says the app does not replace psychotherapy or psychiatric help. It is closing its browser version and directs users to the iOS and Android apps; browser subscriptions cannot be transferred.