Summary: Employee mental health support is facing a critical gap problem that AI co-therapy is now positioned to solve. Employees often wait three to four weeks between counselling sessions, and in that period, motivation drops and skepticism grows. Co-therapy software steps in to provide a consistent presence that checks progress, reinforces strategies, and maintains momentum. Karl Bennett argues this emerging offering can close the loop of authoritative guidance that supports employees when counsellors simply don’t have capacity for follow-ups. 

Employees are not ready for non-human, AI-based counselling. If we’re not willing to deal with a chatbot to query a utilities bill, then using AI to talk about our mental health is a step too far.

But this situation is about to change. We’re now entering a bridging phase with the use of AI as ‘co-therapists’ and HR needs to understand both their benefits and risks to ensure employees can, safely, get the best out of this offering.

The cautious adoption of AI in employee counselling

The latest market report from EAPA UK found that more than half of providers are using some level of non-human clinical interventions – but, overall, the approach is cautious. For a minority (8%), approximately 10-25% of services are non-human; and for 46% of providers, it’s 10% of services or less.

The relatively slow uptake of AI by Employee Assistance Programmes (EAPs)  reflects concerns around safety and a lack of regulation on the use of chatbots ‘trained’ on data and language used across the internet.

We’re still learning from the use of chatbots by the wider UK population, who may see AI as an easy alternative to long waiting lists for NHS talking therapies.

The NHS itself provides access to patients with lower-level mental health concerns through Wysa AI software. But there are increasing examples of AI conversations going wrong. This is essentially because the software is designed to encourage repeated engagement, which means being relentlessly supportive and co-operative, even when making harmful statements. 

Why counselling resources are under pressure

Undoubtedly, human counselling resources are being stretched by demand from employers. EAPA UK data suggests that more than one million counselling sessions are being provided to employees each year. Almost half of providers have found it difficult to recruit associate/affiliate counsellors. This is due to expectations of higher salaries, a greater focus on private practice, and more opportunities to offer counselling services to clients via online providers. Additionally, the cases EAPs handle are becoming more complex, requiring experienced, professional individuals. 

Given these stretched resources, AI is now commonly used as a time-saver by collecting notes on conversations. Co-therapy software takes this a stage further by managing the follow-up stages after a session with a human counsellor.

How co-therapy fills the critical gap

The technology can check in with an employee on next steps: whether they have tried any of the suggestions or coping strategies, what’s worked, what hasn’t, and remind them of any other recommendations to explore.

This is much more than just administrative support. The reality is that there aren’t enough resources available for counsellors to spend time on immediate follow-ups. This means there can often be a gap, sometimes of three or four weeks, between sessions. In this critical period, an employee might feel unsupported, become sceptical about the counselling approach and the advice being given. This is especially the case if initial strategies haven’t led to a positive impact. The motivation and momentum around finding solutions can dip, and evidence from EAP providers shows this can lead to employees dropping out of the process. 

What this means for your HR team

Co-therapy can be a hugely valuable way to improve the counselling experience, keeping up the momentum of support, while reducing the burden on HR. Rather than employees self-referring for counselling, the great majority of cases have been referred by HR or a line manager — meaning there’s a sense of responsibility and pressure on them to provide the correct advice.

In a recent survey, 42% of HR professionals said that managing wellbeing and burnout was the most “emotionally demanding” part of their job, and that they felt like their organisation’s “crisis hotline”. Clearly it’s not HR’s job to act as counsellors, but they also have to ensure that support is ongoing.

Why co-therapy is different from chatbots

Right now, a small number of counselling services are piloting the co-therapy approach. Critically, for HR and their ability to trust services, this is not the use of chatbots. The source of information and advice is a closed loop of data from authoritative sources, which is like having access to thousands of accredited counsellors and their experience to draw on.

Increased use of co-therapy will be an important stage in building up confidence and a body of evidence of effectiveness. This will, in turn, allow for human counselling time to become more focused on specific needs, and the potential for more employees to access more sessions over a longer period.

What comes next

EAPA UK will pay attention to the use of co-therapy software as part of its auditing and safeguarding processes, checking on the sources of AI learning and the guarantees of data security and anonymity. HR can then ensure they are using an audited provider – one with services that are human-led and not just software.

This kind of follow-up support has been a long time coming for counselling professionals; there just haven’t been the resources available to make it viable. While keeping that human presence and human voice front and centre of the EAP offering, co-therapy AI, in principle, is going to be a leap forward in terms of reducing pressures on both counsellors and HR to support employee mental health.