Over a relatively short time, AI has found its way into many aspects of our lives. One area that is experiencing a major transformation is therapy, and mental-health care more broadly. This month, AI Healthcare Week 2025 took place in Dubai, highlighting how AI is reshaping mental health care, especially within the UAE. As mental health challenges continue to impact a significant segment of the population, AI-powered tools are becoming essential for a more accessible and tailored type of support.
This is not to say that person-to-person therapy isn’t still incredibly valuable. Rather, there is a new choice to the possible routes a person can take – and, in some cases, it might be the only available route. Through AI tools, therapy is becoming more available to a broader range of people across the world.
Companies of all sizes have taken notice. In the startup world, over USD 7.5bn globally went to companies working in health-related AI in 2024. Major players like Microsoft, Amazon and Google invest heavily in healthcare AI. At the same time, the M&A landscape is very active thanks to legacy healthcare companies trying to accelerate their digital transformation projects.
This article examines the rise of AI in mental health support, the various business models it presents, and the much wider topic of how AI impacts general healthcare.
The role of AI in modern mental health care
Since its invention by Freud, the traditional model of talk therapy hasn’t changed much. It involves two people sitting in a room, essentially one-to-one sessions between a patient and a licensed professional. But this model is changing.
Today, users can chat with AI-powered counsellors 24/7, often for a fraction of the cost of human therapists. In an era of limited access to care, AI therefore offers an always-on alternative. There are many apps in this space already, including Wysa and Woebot. These have proven particularly popular with the younger population, who already live much of their lives online.
The benefit of these healthcare AI chatbots is they can help users navigate anxiety and depression, and they may be particularly suited to people who are not comfortable opening up to family members or therapists.
Business opportunities in AI-powered mental healthcare
As we have discussed, when someone needs to seek advice or process their emotions, they can now turn to AI rather than their personal circle. This has profound social implications (we will look at the ethical component later in the article), but it also paves the way for a new range of commercial opportunities.
Startups and established firms alike are exploring business models in several spaces, including platforms that tailor support based on a person’s biometric data and stress indicators. There are also AI tools that integrate with your diary, offering tailored support before an upcoming stressful event. Meanwhile, employers are starting to include AI-driven wellness tools in their employee benefits packages.
AI is also being integrated into more traditional therapy practices. Human therapists use AI to transcribe sessions, detect patterns in speech and behaviour, and generate personalised treatment plans. Some clinics are bringing the two worlds together, blending AI tools with human oversight to offer a kind of hybrid care.
There’s also growing potential for AI in diagnostics and triage. Chatbots can conduct preliminary mental health screenings, flag high-risk individuals and streamline referrals to specialists. In areas with clinician shortages, such automation can speed up the process of getting patients the care they need.
AI in general healthcare
Beyond therapy, AI is already being used to read medical images, predict disease outbreaks, and optimise hospital staffing. It is helping doctors personalise treatment regimens, while AI tools are showing remarkable accuracy in detecting certain conditions. Startups are racing to develop AI that can interpret everything from X-rays to lab results faster and more accurately than human doctors.
Telemedicine has been around for a long time, but AI-powered platforms can integrate AI for triage and symptom-checking, letting patients receive preliminary assessments as swiftly as possible before speaking to a clinician. For providers, this reduces workload and improves the movement of patients through the system, while for insurers, it means more cost-efficient care. For patients, it could mean that by the time you speak to your clinician, they already have relevant personal data at their fingertips, helping them design treatment plans.
Legal and ethical considerations
Before we get carried away, there are serious legal and ethical questions to consider. This is particularly noticeable in jurisdictions with stringent privacy and healthcare regulations.
In the UAE, the Ministry of Health and Prevention (MoHAP) recently hosted a forum on the ethics of AI in the healthcare sector. The forum explored the current capabilities of AI within the UAE’s healthcare system and reviewed a proposed ethical framework developed by the National Centre for Health Research to protect personal data and promote transparency and fairness in AI use. The objective is to uphold quality and credibility, build public trust in advanced technologies, and establish consistent ethical standards across the sector.
This groundwork is vital if AI is going to be used responsibly across healthcare. As ethical frameworks try to keep pace with technological advancements, one of the most pressing concerns surrounding AI is data privacy. AI mental health tools often collect sensitive data, so the key questions are: who owns it, how is it stored, and how is it used? For businesses entering this space, robust data governance and compliance are non-negotiable.
Liability is also a major factor in AI development. For example, if an AI tool gives advice that leads to harm, is it the developer, the provider, or the user who is responsible? Currently, many AI therapy tools avoid this risk by underlining that they are not replacements for professional care. But as these tools become more sophisticated, so will the legal frameworks that attempt to keep everyone safe.
Finally, since AI systems learn from data that contains biases, there is a chance that AI will replicate them. So, ensuring the AI is trained on inclusive, diverse data and that there is real transparency in the design of the algorithm will be a moral imperative if reputational damage and other legal issues are to be avoided.
AI: The road ahead
The future of AI in therapy and healthcare is not about replacing humans but making them more efficient and accurate in their work. The most promising businesses are those that understand this balance.
AI can offer scalable, low-cost solutions to potentially millions of people currently underserved by traditional systems. But despite this, the human touch is still crucial, particularly for complex cases and given the fact that therapeutic relationships are ultimately built on trust.
For entrepreneurs, the message is clear. AI is not just a passing trend. It’s a serious shift and one that presents a real opportunity for those ready to address its complexities carefully and responsibly.
