AI-Powered Emotion-Aware Companion for Personalized Emotional Well-Being through Temple Recommendation and Yatra Planning
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Stress, worry, grief and uncertainty are part of everyday life, and many people in South India respond to them in a deeply cultural way: they visit a temple. Most digital wellness tools, however, stop at a chat window, and none of them helps a person move from what they feel to a place that brings them comfort. This paper presents Sriyam Shivam, a web platform built around Sriyam.AI, an AI companion that lets a user pick a guided emotional seeking or describe a feeling in their own words, in Tamil or English. The platform maps the seeking to one of six yatra intents, suggests suitable temples from a curated collection of 366 South Indian temples (97 Divya Desams and 269 Paadal Petra Sthalams), and turns the choice into a personalised pilgrimage plan based on starting city, pace, tradition, group size and duration. Users can take a self-guided Digital Pass and Dossier or a fully guided trip with cab, hotel, pick-up and drop, and can order sacred keepsakes from an integrated store. Twelve functional test cases passed, and early users found the interface calm and easy to follow. The system is designed as a companion for emotional reflection and is not a substitute for clinical care.
Authors: Nithish K P, V. Anbu Priyatharsini
Language: English
Subfield: Applied Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7225773870