Researchers in India and the UK have collaborated on a new project worth 5.3 million pounds to adt and scale up a digital mental health program for adolescent girl living in Indian villages. The project was launched in New Delhi, India, this week to coincide with an AI Impact Summit. It involves Imperial College London and Cambridge University, as well as Milaan Foundation and Tata Institute of social sciences. The team’s goal is to create and test an AI-based chatbot that will help girls who are experiencing low mood or anxiety in rural India. The project, led by Professor Ceire Costelloe of the School of Public Health at Imperial College, is at a crossroads of AI, digital health, and global mental equity.

“Our role at Imperial College is to ensure AI-enabled intervention are properly evaluated with real-world data and implemented in a way that is ethical, transparent, and responsive to the local context. She said that this is crucial if digital tools for mental health are to have a meaningful impact on the scale required. The research, funded by Wellcome will support a study that will scale up a clinically validated AI tool. This will be delivered via Wysa’s digital mental health platform which offers chatbots to help users and directs them to the propriate healthcare resources. The purpose of this study is to see if the tool will help to address anxiety and low-mood among adolescent females, who have some of most severe mental health issues.

This tool will be available to girls facing significant barriers to mental support. These include limited autonomy, restricted technology access, lower literacy and stigma.

“We have seen through Wysa’s implementation of the ‘Phygital AI’ DreamKit how the right support helps a girl develop skills and emotional resilience to help her in everyday life. Now, we want to develop a programme that is culturally and clinically tested. It will help her in those moments she really struggles,” said Jo Aggarwal CEO at Wysa. Wysa was designed as a platform that provides both AI and human assistance to healthcare providers, including the UK’s National Health Service. India, according to official figures, is home to 253 millions children and adolescents aged 10-19. This makes it the world’s biggest adolescent populace.

The majority of mental illnesses begin before age 14, and suicide is one of the most common causes of death for young people. Girls are especially vulnerable to anxiety and depression, as well as social, cultural, and technological barriers. The study will m the cultural, technical, social, and practical barriers preventing rural India’s adolescent females from accessing digital mental health care. These insights will then be used to adjust Wysa’s AI enabled content and delivery model so that it reflects lived realities for girls, their families, and their communities. The adtion will be evaluated on its efficacy, acceptability and viability in low-to-middle income settings.

“This funding allows for us to go beyond simple translation. Working closely with academics and community partners, our goal is to co-design a mobile intervention that’s not only clinically useful, but also genuinely usable for adolescent Indian girls.

Digital interventions for mental health are usually p-based programs that offer guided tools to manage anxiety or low mood. AI chatbots are one way to allow users to ask questions about their mental health in a safe environment.

These interventions can be rigorously tested and could provide access to evidence based mental health services in places where they are difficult or limited to reach. Miranda Wolpert Director of Mental Health at Wellcome said, “We are pleased to support Wysa’s work to adt and expand this evidence-based digital interventions to address anxiety and depressive disorders in rural India. She said that the funding was given as part of a call to identify and scale up digital innovations to support early intervention. Imperial College London’s team will be responsible for providing scientific leadership in the AI, digital health and data research. They will oversee the design of the study, the evaluation framework, and the implementation. They will also ensure that the intervention is clinically efficient, ethically sound, informed by real world data, and designed to be delivered at scale within low resource settings. Amanda Wolthuizen Vice-President for Communications and Strategic Engagement Imperial College London said: “This project exemplifies Imperial Global India’s ambition to strengthen and extend our academic, industry and innovation partnerships with India.

“Through international collaboration, we can improve the health and well-being of millions of people in the world through science for humanity.”
Published on February 19, 2026 at 7:37 AM IST
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