Another Crazy Day in AI: Proactive Mental Health Through Generative Technology
- Wowza Team
- Dec 18, 2025
- 5 min read
Hello, AI Enthusiasts.
Thursday evenings are supposed to be quiet but AI updates say otherwise.
Researchers at Harvard tested AI tools for proactive mental health, giving students gentle nudges that strengthen emotional well-being before stress piles up. Early results suggest prevention can be as powerful as intervention.
Meanwhile, incoming students at a university in Indiana will soon face a new AI learning requirement built into their courses, ensuring graduates are ready for a tech-driven workforce.
And for anyone dabbling in visuals, ChatGPT Images now makes detailed edits faster and smoother—perfect for playing around with ideas over the weekend.
Here's another crazy day in AI:
The case for accessible preventative mental health tools
AI education becomes mandatory at Purdue
OpenAI upgrades image generation in ChatGPT
Some AI tools to try out
TODAY'S FEATURED ITEM: Technology for Preventative Mental Health
Image Credit: Wowza (created with Ideogram)
What if support for mental well-being didn’t start at a breaking point, but quietly strengthened people before things got hard?
College students today face unprecedented mental health challenges. While 76% report needing emotional support, only 38% actually receive it. The barriers are familiar: time constraints, limited access, stigma, and the feeling that seeking help means admitting defeat. A new Harvard Business School working paper from November 2025 examines whether AI technology might help address this gap differently. Researchers Julie Y. A. Cachia and her colleagues conducted a six-week randomized controlled trial with 486 undergraduates across three U.S. institutions, testing an app called Flourish that uses an AI companion named Sunnie to deliver brief, personalized well-being check-ins and activities. Rather than treating symptoms after they emerge, the approach focuses on building emotional and social strengths as a foundation.
The study followed students over the course of an academic term, including naturally stressful periods such as midterms. Participants were randomly assigned either to use the app or to continue with existing campus supports. Researchers measured changes in emotional, social, and overall well-being at multiple points, looking not only for improvements but also for whether the intervention helped protect students from the typical declines that can happen during a busy semester.
What showed up in the data:
Students with app access reported notably higher positive affect by weeks 4 and 6, particularly feeling calmer and maintaining well-being while the control group's levels dropped
Loneliness decreased more among app users than controls, and their sense of belonging and connection to campus grew stronger over time
Mindfulness and flourishing stayed steady in the treatment group but declined in the control group as the semester progressed
Participants used the app roughly 3.5 times per week on average, exceeding the twice-weekly minimum researchers suggested
Sessions combined emotional check-ins with personalized recommendations for practices like gratitude exercises, journaling, or connecting with others offline
Clinical symptoms including depression, anxiety, and stress remained largely unchanged, suggesting the intervention works differently than treatments targeting diagnosed conditions
Results were consistent across different student backgrounds and baseline mental health, though the sample consisted of generally well-functioning individuals
The research points to a role for technology that often gets overlooked in mental health discussions—not replacing professional care or managing emergencies, but helping people maintain emotional stability during normal but stressful periods. Clinical symptoms like depression and anxiety didn't change much, which makes sense considering participants were managing everyday college pressures rather than experiencing mental health crises. What did change were measures like positive emotions, sense of connection, and ability to stay grounded. Students kept returning to the app at rates higher than required, suggesting they found something useful in it. Still, six weeks only tells us so much. We don't know if they'd keep using it after the study ended or whether the benefits would last without continued engagement.
There's a lot this study doesn't answer. Would similar results appear in non-college populations? What about people dealing with more significant mental health challenges? Could easy access to preventative tools sometimes discourage people from pursuing clinical help when they actually need it? The trial focused on three institutions over a short timeframe, so applying these findings more broadly requires careful consideration. Questions about privacy, sustained use over months or years, and how tools like this fit alongside traditional mental health services remain open. The researchers built the app around certain principles—keeping activities grounded in psychology research, prompting real-world actions, emphasizing human relationships over AI interaction—but whether those design choices hold up across diverse situations and user needs involves complexities that extend beyond what a single study can capture. What we're looking at here is evidence that structured, accessible support produced measurable outcomes for this specific group under these particular conditions. It's useful information, but it sits within a much broader and more complicated conversation about technology's place in mental health care, one where definitive answers are still being worked out.
Read the full paper here.
OTHER INTERESTING AI HIGHLIGHTS:
AI Education Becomes Mandatory at Purdue
/Samantha Horton, All Things Considered Newscaster and Reporter, on WFYI
Purdue University is introducing a new AI learning requirement for incoming students, aiming to better prepare graduates for an AI-driven workforce. Rather than adding new classes, the university will integrate AI skills, ethics, and critical thinking directly into existing curricula, tailored to each major. University leaders say the goal is to help students understand both the power and limits of AI as the technology evolves. The requirement will begin with students entering in fall 2026, with plans to expand lessons learned to regional campuses.
Read more here.
OpenAI Upgrades Image Generation in ChatGPT
/OpenAI, Product Release
OpenAI has released a new version of ChatGPT Images, powered by its most advanced image generation model yet. The update focuses on more precise edits, stronger instruction-following, and faster image generation—up to four times quicker than before. Users can now make detailed changes while preserving key elements like facial likeness, lighting, and composition. Alongside the model upgrade, OpenAI introduced a dedicated Images space in ChatGPT to make creative exploration faster and more intuitive.
Check it out here.
SOME AI TOOLS TO TRY OUT:
That’s a wrap on today’s Almost Daily craziness.
Catch us almost every day—almost! 😉
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