Tristan Glatard: Can AI Help With Mental Health?

AI could expand access to mental-health support, but a convincing conversation doesn’t establish that a chatbot is safe. Tristan Glatard explains why mental-health AI needs evidence, evaluation and human supervision, and how its potential extends from conversational tools to predicting treatment responses and identifying crises.

Tristan is Scientific Director of the Krembil Centre for Neuroinformatics at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto. His background is in computer science. In this conversation, he examines where AI could help patients, where general-purpose chatbots need limits, and why privacy, patient perspectives and clinical oversight matter.

In this conversation:

What mental health means across the lifespan

How AI could help match patients with treatments

Why mental-health AI includes wearables and predictive tools

The difference between healthcare chatbots, wellbeing apps and general-purpose AI

The case for support when a human therapist isn’t available

Whether people disclose more to chatbots, and what remains uncertain

Why wellbeing tools need evaluation

How hospital researchers balance opportunity, safety and health equity

Why crisis detection and data privacy matter

How patients should shape the use of AI in their care

Who evaluates and supervises AI support conversations

A surprising finding from Tristan’s ongoing image-analysis research

What discovery, collaboration and good work mean to him

Chapters:

00:00 AI and Mental Health at CAMH

01:29 What Do We Mean by Mental Health?

03:41 How Technology Can Help Personalize Treatment

05:48 AI Beyond Chatbots: Wearables and Prediction

08:58 The Case for an AI Companion

13:15 Do People Open Up More to Chatbots?

15:03 Where AI Mental-Health Support Breaks Down

16:56 Balancing Opportunity, Safety and Health Equity

20:00 Crisis Detection and Data Privacy

22:12 The AI Healthcare Conversation We Need

26:28 Who Supervises AI Support?

30:19 A Surprising Research Discovery

33:03 What Keeps a Researcher Going

35:40 What Gives Tristan Hope

37:30 Where to Follow Tristan’s Work

Connect with Tristan:

Website: https://www.camh.ca/en/science-and-research/science-and-research-staff-directory/tristanglatard

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tristanglatard/

 

Podcast:

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1ILhje5HSua1FEOlTyFAhG  

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3qXL37W