Lyssn

What is Lyssn and who sells it?

Lyssn.io, Inc. is incorporated in Washington and based in Seattle. It was founded in 2017. David Atkins has been CEO since July 2017, Zac Imel is founder and Chief Science Officer, and Michael Tanana is CTO. Crunchbase lists Atkins, Tanana, Tad Hirsch and Imel as founders. The vendor describes the team as "Ph.D-level clinical researchers and data scientists". PitchBook lists 33 employees. Other sources give a range of 11-50.

Funding figures disagree by source. CB Insights reports $8.42M total, with a last $3.2M convertible note. PitchBook reports $4.29M, with a latest $2.9M debt round in 2026. Tracxn reports $2M. The money is described as mostly government grants from NIMH, NIH and HHS, and no Series A or ownership change is listed.

The homepage says Lyssn offers "research-backed AI solutions to measure what matters in health & human services". It applies AI and natural language processing to help organizations implement and model fidelity to evidence-based practices.

What does Lyssn do well?

The product is narrower than a scribe, and it is documented on the vendor's pages.

Sessions are recorded or uploaded, transcribed and reviewed against "more than 75 clinically and externally validated measurements of quality" (vendor wording). Measures include empathy, active listening, collaboration, affirmations and client change language for Motivational Interviewing, plus CBT subscales such as agenda setting, guided discovery and homework.

Views exist for individual providers, teams and offices, and fidelity reporting is available for funders.

In the Learn and Practice area, AI-scored training modules give personalized feedback on evidence-based practice. The homepage news also lists a suicide prevention training program.

Optional AI Notes can generate a clinical summary in the organization's template.

Lyssn says it undergoes "regular external HIPAA and SOC 2 audits" and that data security attestation reports are "available upon request". It also says it is FERPA-compliant and uses encryption and two-factor authentication. The audit firm logo links to A-LIGN. Recordings are available for 90 days by default, then de-identified, or deleted on request, and data are de-identified before algorithm calibration. The customer is responsible for recording consent.

A clinical director who has to show a funder that counselors deliver Motivational Interviewing as designed is the use case Lyssn is built around.

Where does it fall short?

The vendor's evidence figures are inconsistent. The homepage says "17 years" of research, "4.5 million+" analyzed sessions and "65+" peer-reviewed publications. The quality-improvement page says 4.3 million sessions and "60+" publications. The accuracy percentages on that page are not readable as published.

A vendor-oriented summary reports 92% accuracy on a Motivational Interviewing metric, comparable to human raters, and that figure is not independently verified.

A physician-tools directory notes that feedback arrives after the session and so tends to be discussed in supervision, that separate tools are needed for documentation, and that implementation involves cultural change and lengthy IT security reviews.

The page does not name the dates or the framework scope of the audits. HITRUST and FDA status are not stated. A Business Associate Agreement is not stated explicitly, and no EHR integration is named.

What does Lyssn cost?

Quote only. The site shows no prices, directs buyers to contact sales, and gives no billing period.

How does Lyssn compare?

Mentalyc and JotPsych write therapy notes, and Wysa is a patient-side chatbot. Lyssn measures how a session was delivered.

On the web, CB Insights lists Eleos Health and Tali AI as Lyssn competitors. Eleos, Upheal and Mentalyc overlap partly with Lyssn, with documentation on one side and fidelity coding on the other. Comparison content from Mentalyc and Twofold is competitor marketing.

Lyssn wins where an organization needs measurement of practice quality and training at scale. It loses for a private practice that needs notes in the EHR by the end of the day, because documentation is an add-on and EHR integration is undocumented.

What does the evidence say?

Five papers are linked to Lyssn. The one titled as AI fidelity feedback is a 2022 article in BMC Health Services Research on enhancing the quality of cognitive behavioral therapy in community mental health (PMID 36127689). The other four are from 2024: a Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy paper on identifying effective components of computer-assisted CBT (PMID 39625130), a Trials protocol for a CBT depression trial (PMID 39375728), a JMIR Formative Research evaluation of nurse training in suicide safety planning (PMID 39239987) and an Addiction Science & Clinical Practice paper on counseling quality in opioid treatment programs (PMID 38245783). Their titles do not show whether they evaluate Lyssn's software.

A paper list shows research activity around the product. It does not show that Lyssn's scores match human raters in your setting, so ask for the validation report behind the 75 measures.

Who is Lyssn for?

A county behavioral health agency that must report fidelity to a funder. A crisis line that wants to give counselors feedback on every call, not a sample. A training program for CBT or Motivational Interviewing that wants scored practice sessions for learners.

It is not for a solo therapist who wants a faster note, a practice that needs a documented EHR connector, or a buyer who needs a public price before a first call.

The verdict

Lyssn is a research-rooted quality and training platform for organizations, and its price and integrations are unclear. Request pricing, the audit attestation and the validation data behind the 75 measures before committing.