As artificial intelligence continues to dominate conversations around the future of technology, it raises the question of how AI will be integrated into students’ daily lives beyond academic settings. Wake Forest University will soon get a taste of exactly what that integration might look like with Wayhaven AI.
Wayhaven is an AI-powered wellness coach that is anonymous and available 24/7 for students within the Wayhaven app. The coaches have tailored information for each campus, providing students with resources available to them (such as the University Counseling Center), upcoming club events to help students get involved and even personalized plans for studying.
The vision
Founder of Wayhaven and Wake Forest alum Christine Nicodemus explained that her company’s primary goal is to integrate artificial intelligence into wellness on college campuses by providing students with an ongoing well-being coach that can support them during day-to-day activities.
The founder explained that the impetus behind this project came from her struggles with mental health during her time as a Wake Forest student. Her struggles with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) inspired her to make a difference and reimagine the accessibility of mental healthcare to college students.
“I had my first bout with MDD during the spring of my sophomore year, while I was studying abroad in Scotland,” Nicodemus said. “Following that mental health crisis, I unfortunately missed a semester of college, and in many ways, that inspired [Wayhaven].”
Nicodemous said she envisions AI being used as a tool between in-person sessions of counseling to increase accessibility, rather than fully replacing in-person therapy.
“So many people are not getting support for their mental wellness because of financial constraints, time constraints, things of that nature,” Nicodemus said.
Nicodemus explained that the two main goals of implementing Wayhaven at Wake Forest. The AI tool seeks to achieve these goals by providing targeted support when students need it — in academic and non-academic settings. The aim is to help students address smaller stressors in their lives before they grow into overwhelming complications.
Nicodemus said that Wayhaven’s 24/7 AI coaches can respond beyond the traditional operating hours of mental health resources on campus since stressors can occur at any time of day.
“[Wayhaven will] even go so far as to follow up with the student,” Nicodemus said. “If they said they were nervous about a test that’s coming up on Wednesday, we’ll then check back in and see how they’re doing.”
She continued: “The well-being coach can support [students] around the clock and make that initial help-seeking behavior really easy, confidential and [with] a low barrier to entry.”
The implementation
Nicodemus said that the exact implementation of Wayhaven is up to the discretion of Wake Forest’s Mental Health Board, meaning it will likely vary from other campuses, though it will maintain the same goal of helping students’ wellbeing.
Nicodemus said that Wayhaven AI had success when implemented at other institutions, including Furman University and Montclair State University. She said that preliminary research results from Montclair State showed that using Wayhaven AI improved both depression and anxiety levels in students, though she says full study results are expected to come out in the next few months.
“Some early results I can share is that we saw statistically significant drops in the Phq. 9, which is a depression scale, and the Gad. 7, which is a standard anxiety scale,” Nicodemus said.
Wayhaven AI also prides itself on student input from the universities it has been working with, heavily utilizing feedback forms and focus groups during the implementation process. The company plans to continue this as it expands to campuses all across the country including Wake Forest, Villanova University, Baylor University and Grand Valley State University.
“We’ve got a student advisory board that we regularly reach out to for feedback,” Nicodemus said. “We do lots of student focus groups. We do unmoderated User Experience Research (UXR) sessions, where students have a series of instructions of what to do in the app, and we can watch their mouse go along and do the different behaviors, and we get feedback on what’s confusing.”
Jack Jordan, a Wake Forest sophomore who attended one of the on-campus focus groups Wayhaven held last semester, expressed her optimism about the new technology.
“This tool will be appealing to people who struggle with mental health because in my experience, a lot of those who need help find it difficult to reach out for it due to social stigma,” Jordan said. “I think that an anonymous and 24/7 AI tool would encourage more people to take the first step in accessing the care they need.”
