WSJ Tech News Briefing · Sep 26, 2026
With Neil Parikh, Co-founder of Slingshot AI
Slingshot AI launched its chatbot Ash in July 2025 as "the first AI designed for therapy." Its website now calls it "AI designed for mental health."
Several US states now say a service cannot be called therapy unless a licensed professional provides it. Neil Parikh, a Slingshot co-founder, said the company changed the wording on its website last fall because of those laws, and that what Ash offers users has not changed.
"We don't call it AI therapy, but when we think about the value proposition to people, it's similar — which is, you have a problem, you can show up, and Ash is there to help you think through that."
Neil Parikh, co-founder of Slingshot AI, on WSJ Tech News Briefing. His company makes Ash, a mental health chatbot that went dark for months in two US states while Slingshot worked out how their new laws applied, and that it withdrew from the UK in January.
The full segment is covered here so you can skip it.
Here are the 3 moments that matter.
Key Takeaways
Ash might be therapy in everything but name, the host said, after Slingshot dropped the word because of state laws
Parikh said the value to users is similar
Ash went dark in Illinois and Nevada for a few months and came back after the wording changed
Slingshot pulled Ash from the UK in January, citing how regulation works there
Slingshot wants to give Ash an avatar that users could FaceTime with
1. Therapy in All but Name
The episode is the last part of The AI Therapist, a series from the Journal's What's News podcast, which ran on Tech News Briefing. The host went back to July 2025, when Slingshot launched Ash. In a promotional video, Slingshot CEO Daniel Cahn called it "the first AI designed for therapy."
The host said that word choice turned out to matter. Ash's website tagline now reads "AI designed for mental health" and does not mention therapy. Parikh told the host that Slingshot changed the wording last fall, because state laws say a service cannot be called therapy unless a licensed professional provides it. He said the change does not alter Ash's mission.
The word changed; the offer did not
"We don't call it AI therapy, but when we think about the value proposition to people, it's similar — which is, you have a problem, you can show up, and Ash is there to help you think through that." — Neil Parikh
The host said Ash "might be therapy in everything but name." Other companies take different lines. A start-up called Harmony calls itself the first emotionally intelligent AI therapist, while Talkspace says its own AI tool, Tee, is not therapy at all.
