source: techcrunch ai: the path, founded by tony robbins and calm alums, hopes to offer safer ai therapy
level: business
the path is a new ai therapy app co-founded by anson whitmer, tyler sheaffer, and motivational speaker tony robbins. whitmer and sheaffer previously worked at meditation app calm and later founded mental, a mental health app for men. they noticed that an ai interactive audio feature was popular with users, leading them to create the path. the startup raised $14.3 million in seed funding led by prime movers lab, where robbins is a partner, with participation from athletes apolo anton ohno and deontay wilder, and designer fund.
whitmer was motivated by personal tragedy: his uncle and cousin both died by suicide. he earned a phd in psychology but shifted from research to building accessible mental health tools. he believes large language models can provide personalized support at scale, addressing the shortage of human therapists. the path uses ai trained to understand problems deeply rather than simply engaging users, aiming to help people discover their own solutions through structured conversations.
the app offers 11 virtual ai therapists and lets users customize preferences like directness. it is currently free while building its user base, with plans to charge $40 per month later. the company says its model is post-trained from open source models, not built on consumer llms, and scored 95 on the vera-mh mental health safety benchmark, compared to 65 for consumer chatbots. whitmer emphasizes that the ai is designed to challenge users, not just agree with them, to foster real resolution.
why it matters: as millions use general chatbots for mental health, purpose-built ai therapy tools with safety benchmarks could reduce risks and expand access to personalized support.
source: techcrunch ai: the path, founded by tony robbins and calm alums, hopes to offer safer ai therapy