Pai.ACT: AI-driven Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Tailored Mental Health

Overview

Pai.ACT® integrates deep learning with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), offering AI-driven chatbot psychotherapy for parents of children with special needs via mobile platforms. Using a Chinese RoBERTa model trained on 16,000+ ACT sessions and OpenAI tools, it achieves 90% accuracy in assessing psychological flexibility, identifies inflexibility markers, delivers tailored ACT interventions, and escalates high-risk cases for stepped-care support.

Research completion

2024

Commercialisation opportunities

Exclusive licensing

Problem addressed

Family caregivers of children with special needs face unmet mental health needs due to parental stress, high counseling costs, limited time, and stigma. Emotional support services are restricted to diagnosed cases, excluding many caregivers.

Innovation

Pai.ACT® innovatively combines a Chinese RoBERTa model trained on 19,000+ local ACT therapeutic texts with OpenAI's NLP capabilities. This integration accurately identifies psychological inflexibility patterns with over 90% accuracy—comparable to trained ACT therapists—enabling personalized, adaptive therapeutic dialogues that bridge technology and traditional psychotherapy
Pai.ACT® is tailored for parents of special needs children, integrating therapeutic dialogues, assessments, and ACT modules specifically adapted to Cantonese language and Chinese parenting context. It addresses unique cultural needs of Chinese/Cantonese-speaking parents, enhancing engagement and therapeutic efficacy.
Pai.ACT® employs a hybrid model combining AI with human intervention. The central AI chatbot triages users to appropriate care levels: digital self-help ACT, online counseling, or intensive psychotherapy. This approach ensures timely, appropriate support, optimizing resources and maximizing therapeutic outcomes.

Key impact

Clinical Excellence: 90%+ accuracy in identifying psychological flexibility processes, reducing counseling time by 50% and mental health symptoms by 30%, while maintaining professional-quality ACT therapy
Proven Adoption: Served 1,100+ Hong Kong parents of children with special needs, receiving overwhelmingly positive feedback
Expanding Reach: Adopted by 10+ local non-governmental organizations to provide mental health support for families with special educational needs

Award

2024 Gold Medal, 49th International Exhibition of Inventions of Geneva (IEIG)
2024 Silver Medal, Silicon Valley International Invention Festival (SVIIF)
2024 Hong Kong ICT Awards (Smart Empowerment stream) Certificate of Merit

Application

Mental health support: AI-powered psychological flexibility assessment for parents of children with special need
Professional training in counseling: Enhances therapist efficacy with AI-guided process identification, enabling 90% accurate ACT therapy delivery and reducing training time for new mental health professionals.
Expanded applications: adaptable for workplace wellness programs, educational environments, and chronic disease management with mental health support.

Patent

U.S. Patent Application No. 63/587,850, filed October 4, 2023
Chinese Invention Patent Application No: 202410980842.1,

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The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)

Founded in 1963, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) is a forward-looking comprehensive research university with a global vision and a mission to combine tradition with modernity, and to bring together China and the West. CUHK teachers and students hail from all around the world. Four Nobel laureates are associated with the university, and it is the only tertiary institution in Hong Kong with recipients of the Nobel Prize, Turing Award, Fields Medal and Veblen Prize sitting as faculty in residence. CUHK graduates are connected worldwide through an extensive alumni network. CUHK undertakes a wide range of research programmes in many subject areas, and strives to provide scope for all academic staff to undertake consultancy and collaborative projects with industry.

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