Wysa

What is Wysa?

Wysa's homepage promises "Completely anonymous. No stigma. No limits." and describes "safe, clinically backed support for individuals, teams, and health systems" (wysa.com). The consumer face is a penguin chatbot that guides users through CBT, DBT and mindfulness-style exercises. Paid tiers add human coaching.

The company also sells to organizations under several product names: Gateway and Navigator for guided referral, Copilot for between-session support, and AI Self-Help. It lists NHS Talking Therapies, children and young people, collaborative care and physical therapy as care settings. The vendor states: "Wysa's AI never makes decisions on its own."

Who sells Wysa?

Wysa Inc. operates through Touchkin eServices Private Limited in Bengaluru, with offices in Bangalore, Boston and London. PitchBook lists Boston as headquarters, while other sources say India. Jo Aggarwal (CEO) and Ramakant Vempati (President) founded it in 2015.

Reported funding adds up to roughly $28.8M to $30.5M depending on the aggregator: a $1.3M seed in 2017 (Kae Capital), $2M pre-Series A in 2019, a $5.5M Series A in 2021 (TechCrunch) and a $20M Series B in July 2022 (MedCity News).

Wysa bought April Health in March 2025 and Kins in September 2025, both on undisclosed terms. April Health supports collaborative care and Kins physical therapy. Both are linked from the Wysa homepage. Wysa announced a Wellcome Trust grant of GBP 5.3M for an adolescent study in rural India in February 2026.

What does it do for patients and for health systems?

For an individual user, it is anonymous AI chat using CBT, DBT and mindfulness tools. The vendor says "human oversight" applies in all care pathways. Coaching is a paid add-on.

For a health system, the pitch is triage and referral. Gateway and Navigator guide someone toward the right level of care, and Copilot gives patients support between therapy sessions. Employers, insurers and team programs are separate sales channels.

Vendor statistics on the homepage: "11 million lives covered", "105 countries", "6 million people helped", "91% of users find Wysa helpful" and "33% reduction in lost-time days". No methodology is shown for any of them. The vendor also cites "45+ peer-reviewed publications" on the home page and "more than 36" on its clinical evidence page, so the two counts disagree.

Is Wysa FDA cleared, and is it HIPAA compliant?

Wysa received an FDA Breakthrough Device Designation in May 2022 for chronic musculoskeletal pain with depression and anxiety (wysa.com/clinical-evidence). A Breakthrough designation speeds review. It is not clearance or approval. No clearance is listed.

HIPAA: several third-party sources describe Wysa as compliant, and the scoring site HugoScore lists it as attested. SOC 2 is listed as not disclosed on the same scoring site.

Wysa states ISO 27001:2022 and ISO 27701:2019, and compliance with the NHS standards DCB 0129 and the Data Security and Protection Toolkit is reported for UK use. NHS DTAC status is not confirmed.

Secondary sources report no sale of data, no training of an external language model on conversations, and a 10-year default retention.

On integration, clinician-facing reviews say Wysa has no bidirectional EHR integration, and HITRUST is not stated.

What does it cost?

Consumer Premium is listed at $74.99 per year with a 7-day trial in several sources, while the US App Store description lists $99.99 per year. Coaching is sold separately, from $19.99 per session, with guided support plans of $29.99 weekly, $79.99 monthly and $144.99 quarterly, per App Store in-app purchases. Employers and health systems get custom quotes. The consumer figures are app-store listings as of October 2026, and they vary by country and platform.

What does the research show?

Five papers are linked to Wysa:

• JMIR Research Protocols (2025): a trial protocol for Wysa in chronic pain, testing just-in-time adaptive interventions.
• JMIR Formative Research (2026): an observational study of app features that provide continuity of care.
• Frontiers in Digital Health (2024): a brief web and app intervention for mental health support in Singapore during COVID-19.
• Digital Health (2026): a systematic review of network-based AI in mental health chatbots. It is not specific to Wysa.
• Iranian Journal of Psychiatry (2025): a systematic review of AI-powered CBT chatbots. It is also not specific to Wysa.

Wysa's own evidence page adds an RCT in people with chronic diseases (JMIR Formative Research, 2024) and a feasibility cohort in an orthopedic setting. Many of those authors are affiliated with the company, so independence varies.

A protocol describes a planned trial and reports no outcome. An observational study cannot separate the app's effect from who chose to use it. No independent RCT outside company-affiliated authors is listed.

What do users complain about?

ChoosingTherapy and AI Gear Base describe responses as cold or generic, a tool that works best with pre-set replies, most features behind a paywall, and coaching billed on top. Coach replies typically take 24 to 48 hours. Wysa's FAQ says the app is not designed for crisis intervention, and HugoScore reports SOS detection and helpline signposting.

On the praise side, AI Gear Base reports an App Store rating of 4.9 across 20.2K ratings and a Google Play rating of 4.7 across 144K. Those ratings show consumer acceptance and say nothing about clinical effect.

Who should use Wysa, and who should not?

A primary care practice, employer program or NHS service that wants a low-cost digital step for anxiety and low mood can reasonably evaluate it, as long as a clinician owns escalation. Someone paying out of pocket for a year of Premium at $74.99 gets a CBT-style companion.

Look elsewhere if the patient is in crisis, if the clinic needs notes written into the chart, or if the decision hinges on independent efficacy data.