Kintsugi

We’re grateful to Silicon Valley Japan Platform (SVJP) and One Mind for the opportunity to take part in this important conversation on the future of workplace mental health. It was an honor to have our Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Prentice Tom, join this thoughtful and timely panel exploring how innovation and empathy must go hand-in-hand as we integrate mental health technology into care settings globally. At Kintsugi, we’re building voice biomarker AI that can help organizations detect signs of depression and anxiety from just 20 seconds of speech – enabling more proactive, personalized and scalable mental health support. Thank you again to One Mind at Work and SVJP – with special thanks to moderator Haruka Kokaze, as well as organizers Mutsumi Ogaki and Yumi Hiroshima – for bringing together leaders who are committed to advancing mental health with purpose.

🇯🇵 We’re proud to share that Kintsugi has been selected as one of 20 international finalists for the Global Healthcare Challenge (GHeC) – a global pitch event taking place next week in Osaka, Japan. Representing the United States on a global stage, we’ll be joining healthtech, medtech and agetech innovators from around the world, each working to tackle some of the most pressing health challenges of our time. Finalists were selected based on five core criteria: - Innovation - Social impact - Business potential - Feasibility - Contribution to solving real-world health issues. This moment is especially meaningful to us – because Japan is a country where our work is already in motion as it continues to face one of the world’s most severe public health crises related to workplace stress and mental health challenges. 1 in 5 workers in Japan are at risk of karoshi – death from overwork – due to heart attack, stroke or stress-induced suicide. In partnership with NTT-AT, the advanced technology arm of Fortune 100 company NTT, Kintsugi is helping shift the standard of care to objective voice-based screening that can identify signs of depression and anxiety in seconds. This empowers organizations to take earlier, more personalized action in support of employee mental wellness. We’re excited to share our story at GHeC and connect with forward-thinking leaders, technologists and healthcare innovators in Japan who are equally determined to build a more proactive and compassionate approach to mental wellness.

At Kintsugi, we're excited to be rolling out Kay, an empathetic voice AI agent, across several partners this week! From voice search on consumer health sites to pre-/post-visit intake to clinical trials to NP assistants and more. Looking forward to sharing Kay at the Global Healthcare Challenge (GHeC) in Osaka and Tokyo next week and repping 1 of 5 U.S. companies in this Top 20! 🇺🇸🇯🇵🇸🇬🇨🇱🇬🇧🇨🇦🇮🇳🇨🇭🇮🇱 Talk to Kay: https://xmrrwallet.com/cmx.plnkd.in/gehxwFiN and share your feedback!

AI agents are officially the next frontier. All the biggest names in tech – Amazon, OpenAI, Google, Anthropic – are racing to build agents that don’t just answer questions, but take action. It’s very exciting to imagine where this is going. But how do we build AI that’s not just intelligent, but truly understanding? Let’s look at the difference: 🍎 A smart agent can help you reorder your groceries.  But a human-aware agent might notice that you’ve been skipping meals altogether. 🧑⚕️ A smart agent can book a doctor’s appointment when your prescription medication is running low. But a human-aware agent might detect that the medication isn’t working anymore. 📧 A smart agent can sort out your overflowing inbox while you sleep.  But a human-aware agent might see that you’re at risk of burnout and suggest taking some work off your plate. There’s a lot of focus on efficiency in the agentic AI world – but what about empathy? What about the ability to recognize when someone isn’t okay, even if they don’t say it outright? If we get this right, the next generation of AI agents could become true advocates for our well-being.

🌳 What if your doctor could prescribe a walk in nature or an art class just like they do medication? “Social prescribing” is gaining traction as a powerful tool to complement traditional mental health care. And it’s backed by research: community connection and lifestyle interventions have been shown to have a positive effect on mental health outcomes. But new tools for treatment also require new tools for assessment. To prescribe the right level of care – whether it’s nature walks or clinical care – providers need a clear, objective picture of where individuals fall on the mental health continuum. Emerging technologies like voice biomarker AI are making this possible. Using short speech samples, we can objectively screen for signs and severity of anxiety and depression, helping providers personalize care more effectively. As our understanding of mental health evolves, so too should the tools we use to deliver care – from what we prescribe to how we decide what’s needed in the first place.

This Mental Health Awareness Month (May), we want to remind you that progress IS happening. Lately, headlines often feel heavy, but we’re choosing to focus on the bright spots – the hopeful moments of momentum that remind us how far we’ve come in mental health this past year: 1. Clinician burnout is slowly improving. New tools like AI scribes are starting to make a dent, helping providers reclaim time and mental bandwidth – and ultimately enabling them to better care for their patients. https://xmrrwallet.com/cmx.plnkd.in/eFrrpsF2 2. Personalized care models are delivering better outcomes. A 2024 study found that stratified mental health care – matching treatment intensity to severity – outperformed traditional stepped approaches. https://xmrrwallet.com/cmx.plnkd.in/eVTyG7BY 3. AI is revealing biological subtypes of depression. Stanford researchers identified six distinct “biotypes,” paving the way for more targeted treatments and reduced trial-and-error. https://xmrrwallet.com/cmx.plnkd.in/efBejwJF 4. Medicare is expanding mental health access. For the first time, licensed marriage and family therapists and licensed professional counselors can now serve as Medicare providers – a huge win for behavioral health access, especially in underserved areas. https://xmrrwallet.com/cmx.plnkd.in/e46gVUg5 *** At Kintsugi, we believe this momentum matters – and we want to celebrate and raise awareness of it. Our AI-powered voice biomarkers help clinicians detect signs of depression and anxiety early, which supports care stratification and timely intervention, while reducing the administrative burden on clinicians. What mental health advances and initiatives have inspired you most this past year?

We’ve spent years focusing public health efforts on tackling loneliness among older adults. And for good reason: chronic loneliness is tied to increased risk of dementia, depression, stroke and premature death. But what if we’re looking too late? A new study shows that in the US, loneliness is more prevalent in middle-aged adults than in seniors. Research suggests that what happens between 40 and 60 may be the most pivotal window for preserving mental health and independence in later years. And yet, this “sandwiched” stage of life – when people are often juggling caregiving and career pressure – is often ignored when it comes to mental health support. A few thoughts: 🧠 Middle age is a time when subtle mental health patterns start to shift, and when long-term risks begin to crystallize. 💡 Loneliness isn’t always loud. It doesn’t necessarily look like isolation. Sometimes it’s silence that even close friends can’t hear. 📊 We can’t fix what we don’t measure. If we want to support healthy aging, we need better tools to detect quiet mental health challenges like loneliness long before crisis hits – and ways to scale that insight without burning out the system. The earlier we listen, the healthier we age. Check out the global loneliness study: https://xmrrwallet.com/cmx.plnkd.in/eu9TNCAD

In Nashville for McDermott HealthEx this week? Dana Gusky, Director of Growth Strategy at Kintsugi, is attending this premier event – joining healthcare and life sciences leaders from across the country to explore what’s next for innovation. 🧠 At Kintsugi, we’re building AI-powered voice biomarker technology to detect subtle signs of depression and anxiety from just a short subject-agnostic speech sample – helping healthcare organizations surface mental health needs more objectively and coordinate care quickly based on severity. We believe the future of mental healthcare depends on our ability to listen earlier and more deeply – and we’re looking forward to discussing this further at HealthEx! If you’re attending and exploring ways to scale access to quality mental healthcare, Dana Gusky would love to hear from you!

Honored to speak at Cooley LLP’s 15th Annual Healthcare Conference on the future of AI in healthtech, alongside Justin Kao from DFJ Growth, Kinshuk Kocher from Cedars-Sinai Technology Ventures. In a year where healthcare is outperforming the broader market, the conversation is shifting from survival to scale—and AI is front and center. With $4T in private capital still looking for a home, and a return of IPO activity in healthtech, now is the time to build resilient, high-impact companies. We touched on: ✅ AI’s role in driving clinical outcomes and operational efficiency ✅ Why consistency and milestone delivery matter more than ever ✅ How companies like Kintsugi are positioning for scaled impact and regulatory clarity Huge thanks to Cooley for convening such a sharp group of leaders and to Josh S. for hosting. For those who caught the JPM state of market morning session, this panel was a perfect close to the day. Let’s keep building. #AI #venture #digitalhealth #cooley #jpm

🧠 What if one of the biggest risks to patient safety… is how we communicate with each other? A new meta-analysis published this week in Annals of Internal Medicine found that at least 1 in 10 hospital safety events are linked to simple misunderstandings and miscommunication between physicians, nurses, patients or caregivers. Maybe a silence is mistaken for agreement. Perhaps language barriers prevent instructions from being clearly understood. 🔄 Healthcare is, at its core, human. But when the stakes are this high, we need better ways to listen between the lines. AI can help highlight the unspoken, and ensure that everyone is heard – regardless of communication style, cognitive state or cultural background. 💬 Whether it’s patients who are unable to speak clearly due to illness 💬 Or those suffering from depression who struggle to voice their symptoms 💬 Or diverse communities who express distress in ways that aren’t always picked up by standard assessments If we use AI wisely, it can help us tune into nuance and reduce the kinds of communication breakdowns that cost lives. The future of care depends on smarter listening. Check out the study in Annals of Internal Medicine: https://xmrrwallet.com/cmx.plnkd.in/eUEf8MhV