AI-Powered Prevention and Early Intervention for Stress, Depression, and Anxiety: A Randomized Clinical Trial
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Study designs: Randomized Controlled Trial, Clinical Trial
Abstract: Randomized evidence for purpose-built generative AI mental health support remains limited. In this preregistered trial, 1,137 unscreened university students were assigned to 6 weeks of a generative AI-powered mobile intervention (“Flourish”) or care as usual. Across the full sample, Flourish produced more favorable trajectories for perceived stress (β = −0.03, p = 0.010), depressive symptoms (β = −0.03, p = 0.006), and anxiety symptoms (β = −0.04, p = 0.001). Among participants with lower baseline symptoms, Flourish buffered deterioration; among those with elevated symptoms, improvements were larger with Flourish for depression (d = 1.03 vs 0.56) and anxiety (d = 0.91 vs 0.60), with meaningful improvement in 52.3% vs 31.7% and 50.6% vs 38.1%, respectively. Reduced perceived stress emerged as a potential pathway to symptom improvement. To our knowledge, this is the first trial supporting purpose-built, safety-first generative AI for mental health prevention and early intervention in an unscreened population.
Language: English
Subfield: Applied Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7223222630