As the world continues to bring artificial intelligence into more aspects of our lives, there’s a new generation of companies attempting to integrate AI and wellness
But what about sexual health? Can AI-driven technology help people improve these more personal aspects of our mental health? And can these advancements be integrated with psychedelic medicine?
Intiem is one firm working to make this happen, developing AI to enhance sexual wellness and provide a safe and inclusive space for individuals and couples to explore their sexuality.
Intiem has developed a proprietary AI Virtual Sexual Wellness Therapist™ — an AI platform and virtual sexual wellness therapist, available to any adult woman, man, non-binary, and LGBTQ+ person who wishes to enhance their sexual wellness, overcome sexual challenges, recover from sexual trauma, or simply maximize their sexual pleasure.
We sat down with Intiem founders Bjorn Hansen and Nathaniel Morris to discuss their work and vision for AI and sexual health.
On the benefits of AI in sexual therapy
The concept of a virtual AI therapist — or any kind of human connection being filled by an AI — can sometimes be looked at with skepticism or even a negative connotation. But in developing this platform, the Intiem team says it has received positive feedback from prospective users.
“In our own experience talking with people and getting feedback about the solutions we’re developing, the virtual aspect is actually considered one of the primary benefits. It’s not a bug, but a feature — particularly when it comes to issues of sexuality because of the stigma against discussing these topics in our society. It’s difficult to have open and honest conversations about it. We tend not to develop the tools to speak freely on that subject. And so when talking about your own sexuality and potentially sensitive issues, using artificial intelligence as a soundboard can be tremendously beneficial to many people.”
Creating a safe space for exploration and healing — especially for someone working through trauma — can be a crucial part of the recovery process.
What’s your vision of the company? What are you trying to solve?
“From a thirty thousand-foot view, we see that there have been enormous advances in sexual wellness, particularly when it comes to the treatment of sexual trauma, sexual dysfunction, and the myriad of other issues that people struggle with surrounding sexuality. Unfortunately, these matters haven’t been productively addressed for the broader public. As such, we see one of the biggest challenges lies in providing adequate education and access — and virtual sexual wellness therapists are uniquely positioned to serve sexual education in a way that’s user-specific.”
What are some other benefits of AI or virtual therapy?
“Instead of talking to a therapist who might have some general experience in sexuality, a virtual therapist can answer specific questions and concerns, drawing upon a catalog of expertise from all the best practices in the space. Rather than the therapist quality being luck of the draw, an AI therapist can pull from the greatest experts in the field and find the best types of advice and the most effective treatment methodologies to incorporate into a personalized and holistic solution.”
Flexibility and ability to adjust to a user’s needs?
“Yes, the beautiful thing about this platform is that it’s AI-driven, so it’s ultimately up to the user to define what kind of experience they want to have. For instance, there could be somebody struggling to achieve orgasm and it’s affecting their relationships, and we can read into their sexual arousal system to find the optimized path to help them through their situation. Or perhaps it’s sex addiction or porn addiction, some deeper trauma, or simply wanting to maximize the experience of euphoria; whatever the case, an individualized strategy is developed for each user’s specific circumstance and intention.”
These are just some examples to demonstrate the flexibility of the system. It can also incorporate substances as part of treatment, as some people respond very well to cannabis in a sexual context, and others may benefit from incorporating psychedelics in this type of therapy.
“It’s not a one-size-fits-all solution, but instead exposes people to a variety of different options and scenarios based on the information provided to the virtual therapist. And with that, it takes them down a pathway of personal exploration that can take on any number of different forms, depending on what the person responds positively to.”
Some specifics about the technology and type of interactions
“You’ll be able to control everything about your virtual environment. And the user interface is a verbal control, so you’re not adjusting a button to lower the lighting, you’re asking your virtual sexual wellness therapist to turn the lights up or down. The same is true for music and every other aspect of the experience. It’s all voice control.”
“When you wear the VR headset, one of the things that we secured with our provisional patents regards the EEG capabilities. With this, your brain activity is monitored while you’re in the virtual space so the experience can be adjusted based on your biofeedback and the sex tech itself.”
“These components are synchronized with the visual stimuli that you experience in the virtual space. In that sense, it’s both physical, visual, and audio — completely immersive. Also synchronized are concurrent polyrhythms. This is another component of the system which provides a means to hack the human sexual arousal system by providing a variety of different polyrhythms and monitoring how the user responds to ultimately optimize stimuli in order to best meet the needs of individual users.”
“There is a huge unmet need in the sexual wellness space, and we can use this innovative tech to help people. We’re also working towards FDA approval to make this technology available as a medical device, showing efficacy as a treatment for sexual trauma and/or PTSD. Our recent patents are very encouraging to that end.”
Here’s an abstract from Intiem’s provisional patent:
Disclosed herein are methods and systems for providing an optimized sexual experience. Also disclosed are sexual wellness devices, the use of virtual sexual wellness therapists, the use of VR, ML and Al techniques, and the use of psychoactive and psychedelic compounds to create an integrated sexual wellness platform for facilitating novel sexual experiences and forms of sexual pleasure, and for improving individual health and well-being.
