Author: openjargon

• Spotify chief Daniel Ek has sold $176.3 million worth of stock this year.
• Spotify shares have leapt 60% year-to-date.
• Ek isn't the only tech luminary to cash out amid ballooning value.

Daniel Ek, Spotify's cofounder and CEO, has sold $176.3 million worth of his stock in the streaming service this year, as its shares continue to surge.

On April 24, Ek sold roughly 400,000 shares worth $118,800,000, according to an SEC filing. In a separate transaction in February, he sold 250,000 shares worth $57,505,000, per filings.

The sales come as Spotify's stock has grown substantially in recent months — to the tune of roughly 60% year-to-date.

The company reported record profitability last quarter — though Ek acknowledged that Spotify underestimated the impact of laying off 1,500 people in December (as part of 2,500 in total cuts in 2023.)

Ek is one of many prominent business execs offloading shares amid explosive growth. As of February, Jeff Bezos, Jamie Dimon, and Mark Zuckerberg had sold stock in their respective companies worth about $9 billion — as shares of Amazon, JPMorgan, and Meta ballooned.

And Ek — who famously hasn't taken a salary since 2017 — also isn't the only Spotify exec selling shares this year. Fortune notes that other members of Spotify's C-suite, plus former CFO Paul Vogel, have also sold tens of millions of dollars in stock this year.

Spotify did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

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• Hermès, a luxury Italian brand that's existed for decades, is getting Gen Z's attention, a new poll says.
• The company is known for its highly-coveted Birkin bag that's dominating the resale market.
• Young shoppers have shown they're more loyal to luxury brands than their parents.

Gen Z has some seriously expensive taste, especially considering half of them aren't out of college yet.

A recent poll by Ad Age found that the top brand getting the attention of those born between 1997 and 2012 is Hermès in the first quarter of 2024. The luxury Italian brand is known for its exclusive and highly-coveted handbags like the Birkin and Kelly bags.

Gen Z and millennials have led the charge in driving up sales in the luxury market, so it's no surprise that a brand known for fetching five figures for bags is at the top the list.

And the secondhand market looks to be where it's at for young shoppers.

In 2023, TheRealReal reported that the Birkin bag had the highest resale value with a 127% return on investment and that demand for "fair condition bags" was up 130%.

Shopping for a brand new Birkin isn't as easy as scrolling an app. Hermès is in hot water over its sales practices that some say require clients to spend money on other products before they can purchase the in-demand Birkin bag.

Over the past year, Hermès' stock has outpaced its competitors like luxury giant LVMH, and it's done so without giving out free bags to influencers and celebrities.

Despite the attention from Gen Z, Hermès doesn't have an official TikTok account.

Outside its iconic leather bags, the family-run company is also known for its lavish silk scarves — sometimes seen accessorizing a Birkin — and its $1,900-plus throw blankets.

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• Nancy Walton Laurie is the daughter of Walmart cofounder James "Bud" Walton.
• Her net worth is $9.10 billion, according to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index.
• Here's what we know about the Walmart heiress.

While Sam Walton is the better-known cofounder of Walmart, he didn't start the world's largest retailer by himself.

Walton had help from his younger brother, James "Bud" Walton, who left behind his stake in the company to his two children, daughters Ann Walton Kroenke and Nancy Walton Laurie, when he died in 1995.

His younger daughter, Nancy, made headlines last year when her $300 million superyacht, Kaos, was spray-painted by climate activists proclaiming the message "You consume, others suffer."

Here's what you need to know about the billionaire Walmart heiress:

Nancy Walton Laurie, 72, is the youngest daughter of James "Bud" Walton, who cofounded Walmart with his brother, Sam Walton. The brothers opened the first Walmart in 1962 in Rogers, Arkansas.

She currently lives in Henderson, Nevada, and Los Angeles, according to Bloomberg.

Sources: Bloomberg

In 1973, she graduated from the University of Memphis, known then as Memphis State, with a bachelor's degree in English.

Source: Bloomberg

She met her future husband, Bill Laurie, at the university, where he played basketball. His team made it to the 1973 NCAA finals.

Source: Memphis Daily News

The couple had a daughter, Elizabeth Paige Laurie, in 1982. Paige was accused of paying a fellow student $20,000 to do her homework for three and a half years during her time at USC and in 2005, she surrendered her degree.

Source: LA Times

When James "Bud" Walton died in 1995, Nancy inherited around half of her father's 40 million shares in Walmart, while her older sister, Ann Walton Kroenke, received the rest. Nancy owns less than a 5% stake in the company, according to Bloomberg. She is not actively involved in Walmart's operations.

Source: Bloomberg

Nancy is the 269th richest person in the world as of April 29, 2024, according to The Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with an estimated net worth of $9.10 billion.

Source: Bloomberg

Nancy's cousin, Alice Walton, is one of the world's richest women and for a brief time was named the richest woman in America.

Source: Business Insider

Collectively, members of the Walton family own an estimated stake of around 45% of Walmart.

Source: Forbes

Nancy is a patron of the arts. In 1998, she established a dance school called the Columbia Performing Arts Center in Columbia, Missouri.

Source: New York Times

She also owned a contemporary ballet company called the Cedar Lake Ensemble in New York City. She established the company in 2002. In 2004, she paid $11.37 million to build out "a 191-seat theater, a rehearsal studio and offices for her company," according to the New York Times. The company closed in 2015.

Source: New York Times; New York Times

Nancy and her husband owned the St. Louis Blues hockey team from 1999 to 2005. Today, they have a commercial real estate portfolio, multiple homes, and two yachts, according to Forbes.

Sources: Como Mag; Globe Newswire; Forbes

One of Nancy's yachts, called Kaos, was the subject of news last year when climate activists spray-painted it.

Members of Spanish environmental group Futuro Vegetal last year spray-painted the yacht as it was docked at a port in Ibiza, an island off the coast of Spain.

The 361-feet long yacht is worth an estimated $300 million and includes a swimming pool, cinema, spa, and aquarium, according to Yacht Bible.

After activists spray-painted the stern of the yacht in red and black, they held up a sign that read "You consume others suffer."

A video of the event, and of workers hosing down the paint afterwards was uploaded online.

—FuturoVegetal🍒 (@FuturoVegetal) July 16, 2023

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

 

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• From deeps rate cuts to a potential rate hike in 2024, one firm has changed its forecast in a big way.
• Macquarie said the resilient economy means potential interest rate cuts won't happen until 2025.
• "The next change may be a hike, which would prompt a new wave of broad-based US dollar strength," Macquarie said.

Economists at Macquarie have made a big about-face on their projections for interest rates in 2024. 

In December, Macquarie said that the Federal Reserve would aggressively cut interest rates in the second half of the year by as much as 225 basis points. Assuming the central bank moves the federal funds rate down by 25 basis point increments, that would equate to nine interest rate cuts just this year. 

That rate cut forecast was driven by "a continued moderation in core inflation and an undesirable rise in unemployment," Macquarie economists David Doyle and Neil Shankar said at the time.

But fast forward just a few months and the economic picture has changed in a big way: inflation has shown signs of rebounding and the US economy, driven mainly by consumers, has remained incredibly resilient.

That lack of economic weakness has led to a stark shift in interest rate forecasts, with even the Federal Reserve suggesting that its initial projections of three interest rate cuts this year could dwindle to one rate cut or even none.

Strategists at Macquarie said in a note on Monday that the chances of a Fed interest rate cut this year are slim to none and that an interest-rate hike is possible. A potential rate hike would shock markets, as few have called for such a move despite a string of hotter-than-expected inflation reports from January through March.

"Fresh US data has prompted our US economist to push out his projection of the start of the Fed's easing cycle to 2025. We also don't rule out that the next change may be a hike, which would prompt a new wave of broad-based US dollar strength," Macquarie said in a note on Monday.

Last week's release of first-quarter GDP growth and PCE inflation data suggested continued "stickiness" in inflation, and solid corporate earnings results continue to illustrate that most of the US economy is on solid footing.

That means that the Fed's upcoming FOMC meeting this week could result in a hawkish press conference from Fed Chairman Jerome Powell on Wednesday.

"We expect, in any case, that the Fed's communications after the FOMC meeting this week will have a uniformly hawkish tone, conveyed primarily through the Statement," Macquarie said.

That could be a double whammy for a stock market that had been largely fixated on interest rate cuts this year.

"What is increasingly ominous too is the prospect that the next policy rate change may be a hike, even if the policy bias at the Fed is unchanged. Even if stock investors ignore that – on the premise that it would be just an offset to better nominal growth in the US – the threat of a hike certainly would prompt a new wave of broad-based USD strength," Macquarie said.

A rising US dollar is a headwind for US companies that have operations overseas, as it reduces their international profits due to currency conversions. 

Macquarie wasn't the only firm forecasting aggressive interest rate cuts this year. In December, UBS predicted that a US recession would spark the Fed to cut interest rates by a whopping 275 basis points. 

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• South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem's forthcoming book reveals she shot and killed her family dog.
• She said the 14-month-old  dog bit her and attacked her family's chickens.
• Who is she trying to impress by revealing this?

After The Guardian published excerpts from South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem's forthcoming book detailing how she killed her daughter's young dog, the rising Republican politician has doubled down on the decision as a matter of principle.

According to her book, "No Going Back," Noem owned a Wirehaired Pointer puppy named Cricket. The 14-month-old dog, Noem said, had an "aggressive personality" and hadn't been trained to hunt properly.

Noem eventually decided to kill Cricket by bringing her to a gravel pit and shooting her. She also killed a "nasty and mean" goat that same day, according to her book.

After receiving vitriol from both Republicans and Democrats for the killings, Noem defended her actions on X. "I followed the law and was being a responsible parent, dog owner, and neighbor," she wrote.

Who, exactly, is Noem trying to win over by publicly sharing such a gruesome act?

Not South Dakota voters.

Noem, who won reelection in 2022, isn't eligible for another term in the governor's mansion. And while she's become a frequent presence on right-wing television, bragging about killing family pets usually isn't the way one goes about building their brand and personal credibility.

Is it possible this was aimed at former President Donald Trump and his advisors?

Noem has been a part of several of Trump's campaign rallies over the last year and is being floated by pundits as his possible vice presidential running mate.

Trump has spoken negatively about dogs and didn't own one while in the White House — the closest he ever publicly got to one there was when awarding a medal to an injured dog. And he famously likes leaders who he perceives as tough and mean.

But given the universal backlash, it's hard to imagine that Noem's brutal admission in her book would help her win him over for a possible veep spot.

Whatever her reasons, admitting she gruesomely and needlessly killed her dog is not something people will let her live down anytime soon. Just ask Mitt Romney.

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• The Fed's reliance on "flawed" inflation data to keep interest rates high will spur a policy mistake, David Rosenberg says.
• The latest PCE and GDP data may be misrepresenting the actual state of the economy.
• The Fed has been too optimistic about jobs data that's based on nonfarm payrolls, Rosenberg said. 

The Federal Reserve's fixation on a streak of "flawed" data to justify keeping interest rates higher for longer is bound to spark a policy mistake, according to top economist David Rosenberg. 

"The Fed seems to be focusing not just on flawed data, but on headlines only. I don't sense any analysis of the data by the various FOMC officials as much as reporting of the data," Rosenberg said in a note on Monday. 

He said the reverberations of such a misstep wouldn't hit until six months later, but when they do, the Fed and the markets are in for a shock.

"The Fed now intends to stay on the sidelines as it closely watches lagging and contemporaneous indicators that are littered with high error terms, and the longer it waits, the more it is going to have to do on the rates front. Shades of 1991, 2001 and 2008," he wrote.  

Rosenberg criticized the Fed's focus on its favored PCE inflation data, which spiked higher than estimated at a 3.7% annual rate in March, making the central bank believe it's still too early to loosen the monetary policy. 

The economist pointed out that first-quarter data paints a narrow inflation picture, mainly driven by three idiosyncratic items: financial services and insurance, healthcare services, and housing and utilities.

"I don't see how the Fed can influence these inherently non-cyclical areas. And it is unclear how long-lasting these influences will be," he said, adding that excluding the three items above, core PCE inflation edged up by only 1.5% annually in Q1. 

Rosenberg noted that even the tepid 1.6% annualized real GDP growth in the first quarter was mainly driven by government, healthcare, and financial services. Beyond these sectors, real consumer spending only saw a modest uptick of less than 2% annually, far from a "hot economy" narrative. 

"Meanwhile, household expenditure on both durable and nondurable goods contracted at a -0.4% annual rate, and these are far more exposed to the shifts in the economic cycle," the note said. 

Finally, he noted that the Fed's long-term view of the economy as still hot based on non-farm payroll data was dashed by the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages and Business Employment Dynamics.

Rosenberg pointed out that the payroll report may be exaggerating actual employment by 70,000 per month. This is because the lagging, more comprehensive QCEW data only showed a 1.5% rise as of September 2023, while the widely used nonfarm payroll report indicates a 2% growth every month.

Meanwhile, BED data indicated a 192,000 drop in private employment in Q3 of last year, whereas private job payroll data reported a significant 521,000 increase in that time. 

"We have not seen a decline like this since the first and second quarters of 2020, but we also had this sort of drop in the third quarter of 2007 and the first quarter of 2001."

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• I visited two Costco stores, one in the Midwest and one in New York City.
• New York City's Costco store was smaller, which made it feel more crowded.
• The prices and offerings were mostly identical, though the food courts featured different sodas.

As someone who grew up in Wisconsin and moved to New York City a decade ago, I enjoy analyzing the similarities and differences between the two regions I call home.

As part of a series comparing nationwide chains like Target and Trader Joe's in the Midwest and New York City, I visited Costco locations in Wisconsin and Manhattan. My Gold Star membership, which costs $60 per year, grants me entry to all Costco stores.

Costco remains a popular brand across the US and the world, offering bulk items at lower prices than many retailers. Its net sales added up to $237.71 billion in the 2023 fiscal year, a 6.7% increase from 2022.

While Costco stores are pretty standardized, which I found when I visited a Costco in Iceland, I was still interested to see if there were any regional variations in their prices, items, and shopping experiences.

Here are the most surprising differences I noticed.

During a trip home to Wisconsin in November, I visited a Costco store in Grafton, Wisconsin, measuring 151,000 square feet.

A large technology section was set up at the entrance.

There were also tables full of winter coats, sweaters, and other apparel.

The store wasn't too crowded on the Thursday afternoon I visited, with plenty of room to move in the aisles.

The Kirkland bakery sold cookies, pastries, and birthday cakes.

The produce was located in a walk-in refrigerated section.

The samples were plentiful, with Costco employees handing out veggie crisps, granola-bar pieces, and cups of sparkling water.

I spotted a few local products like cheddar cheese curds produced in Ellsworth, Wisconsin.

This Costco also stocked coffee beans roasted in Door County, Wisconsin.

The lines for both self checkout and cashiers were only a few carts deep and moved quickly.

The food court was located beyond the checkout counters and sold pizza, chicken bakes, sandwiches, hot dogs, and desserts like churros and ice-cream sundaes.

A sign on the window notified customers about potential allergy issues.

The soda fountain included Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Tropicana lemonade, and Starry lemon-lime soda.

Next to the food court, there were plenty of tables where customers could sit and eat before heading to their next destination.

When I returned to New York City, I visited Manhattan's sole Costco location in East Harlem.

The Costco store is part of East River Plaza, a shopping complex that also includes stores like Aldi, Marshalls, and Ashley Homestore.

Unlike in the Midwest, where free parking lots are the norm at most stores, parking in the East River Plaza's garage costs $6 for up to two hours.

People were already lined up and waiting to get in when I arrived a few minutes before the store opened at 10 a.m. on a Friday in January.

At 110,000 square feet, New York City's Costco store was noticeably smaller than the one I visited in the Midwest.

At times, I found it difficult to navigate my cart through the crowds and smaller aisles.

New York's Costco store had many of the same warm clothing items on display.

There was a large selection of cheeses, but no Wisconsin cheese curds.

Some signs varied slightly between stores — for example, a sign at the Midwest Costco indicated "fresh produce," while the New York Costco just said "produce."

The New York City Costco also had a kosher bakery section where cakes and pastries were prepared in accordance with Jewish dietary laws.

Costco's famous $4.99 rotisserie chickens cost the same at both stores, though they flew off the shelves in New York as shoppers waited for each fresh batch.

I was surprised there weren't any samples available to try, but a Costco employee later told me that the stations hadn't been set up yet so soon after opening.

Both the cashier and self-checkout lines stretched out into the aisles with large numbers of people jostling for spots.

Above the checkout lines, signs advertised the food court's offerings, which were identical to the Wisconsin Costco's menu and prices.

One difference I noticed in the food court was that unlike in the Midwest, no allergy information was posted on the display case.

Additionally, the soda fountain in Manhattan offered Brisk iced tea instead of Starry.

Compared to the Midwest, New York City's Costco felt like a more cramped, hectic shopping experience to me, but the low prices and huge selection make it worth the trip in any region.

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• Bernie Sanders has become a towering figure in American politics. It wasn't always that way.
• He got his start in government as a small-town mayor, decades before his 2016 and 2020 campaigns.
• Here's everything to know about the Democratic socialist senator.

Bernie Sanders is known today as perhaps the most important leader on the American left. It wasn't always that way.

Long before his 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns helped steer the Democratic Party leftward, the Vermont senator was a lonely voice in American politics — the rare politician willing to call himself a "socialist" in a country defined heavily by its opposition to the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Sanders was born on September 8, 1941 in Brooklyn, New York to a working class Jewish family. His father was an immigrant from Poland. He attended James Madison High School, where he was a track star, and graduated in 1959, eight years before his present-day colleague Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

He later attended the University of Chicago, where he was famously arrested for protesting against segregation in Chicago public schools. He graduated in 1964, spent some time on an Israeli kibbutz, and moved to Vermont in 1968.

From mayor of Burlington to the longest-serving independent in congressional history

Sanders's initial foray into politics took place far outside the Democratic party: In the 1970s, he ran for both governor and US Senate multiple times under the banner of the socialist "Liberty Union" party.

His first political victory came in 1981, when he was elected mayor of Burlington — the largest city in Vermont — by a mere 10 votes. He would go on to serve four terms, easily winning reelection each time.

After coming second in a three-way race for Vermont's sole House seat in 1988, he was elected to Congress in 1990 with significant Democratic support. Despite that, he maintained his status as an independent, and would later earn the title of the longest-serving independent in congressional history.

Sanders has been an avowed socialist the entire time, and was forthright in defending that position even when the Soviet Union still existed.

"I am a socialist and everyone knows that," Sanders said in 1990. "They also understand that my kind of democratic socialism has nothing to do with authoritarian communism."

Sanders was elected to the Senate in 2006 and was reelected by overwhelming margins in 2012 and 2018.

The 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns

In April 2015, Sanders took perhaps the most impactful step of his career — announcing that he would run for president, challenging former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the 2016 Democratic nomination under the slogan "A Future To Believe In."

Running on a platform that included Medicare for All, addressing income inequality, and enacting campaign finance reform, Sanders helped awaken a movement on the American left that persists to this day, inspiring the rise of figures like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Though he lost his bitterly fought primary against Clinton that year, he demonstrated that there was a robust appetite for more left-wing economic proposals than the Democratic Party had long offered. In the years between his 2016 run and 2020 campaign, several other potential Democratic presidential contenders embraced Sanders's proposals, especially Medicare for All.

In 2020, Sanders ran again, ultimately coming in second to now-President Joe Biden in the primary. He dropped out on April 8, 2020, roughly a month after the COVID-19 pandemic began.

Who Sanders is today — and what he's fighting for

Since his 2020 campaign, Sanders has assumed a more institutional role in the United States Senate.

During the first two years of Biden's presidency, he served as the chairman of the Budget Committee, a perch that afforded him a key role in shaping Biden's domestic agenda, including the ill-fated "Build Back Better" social spending bill that laid the groundwork for the Inflation Reduction Act.

Since 2023 — a period of divided government — Sanders has been the chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, a perch he's used to take on corporations while pushing proposals such as a 32-hour workweek and a $17 federal minimum wage.

He's also been especially outspoken against Israel since the October 7 Hamas attacks, calling for conditions on US aid to the country and voting against bills that don't include those conditions.

Sanders is worth at least $2 million and owns three homes, according to numerous reports. Much of that wealth has come from book sales, a frequent source of outside income for lawmakers with high profiles.

In 2022, for example, Sanders nearly doubled his income via book royalties for his latest book, "It's OK to Be Angry About Capitalism."

"I wrote a best-selling book," he told the New York Times in 2019. "If you write a best-selling book, you can be a millionaire, too."

The 82-year-old Vermont senator, the second-oldest US senator behind the 90-year-old Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, has not yet said whether he will seek reelection in 2024.

If he chooses to run, he will essentially be a lock for reelection. If he chooses to retire, several candidates may seek to replace him, including Democratic Rep. Becca Balint.

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• The Supreme Court rejected Elon Musk's bid to get rid of his 'Twitter sitter.'
• He has to get legal approval for any X posts about Tesla as part of an SEC agreement.
• Musk argued it limits his free speech, but the court shot him down.

The Supreme Court isn't going to step in to help Elon Musk get rid of his "Twitter sitter."

The court on Monday rejected an appeal by the billionaire Tesla CEO over a previous settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission which requires Musk to get legal approval for any posts he makes on X about Tesla.

Musk settled with the SEC in 2018 after he tweeted he had the "funding secured" to take Tesla private in a deal that never came to pass.

He filed a petition with the Supreme Court to undo the settlement in December, arguing it limited his free speech.

Business Insider has reached out to X and Tesla for comment.

The Tesla boss — who also runs SpaceX and X itself — has been no stranger to feuds with government officials.

He's raged against the SEC, called Joe Biden a "damp sock puppet in human form," and picked a fight this year with one of Brazil's top judges.

Meanwhile, the SEC reportedly is opening up a new line of investigation against Musk, Bloomberg reported. This time, the agency is probing Tesla's claims about its self-driving tech.

That tech has also come under fire from federal regulators, who said last week they had linked Tesla's Autopilot feature to hundreds of crashes.

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• AI is being used in the understaffed mental-health-care field to help providers.
• AI-powered software can suggest treatments through mobile apps and analyze therapy sessions.
• This article is part of "Build IT," a series about digital tech trends disrupting industries.

The fusion of human ingenuity and machine intelligence is offering an innovative approach to personalized mental-health care. By leveraging AI technology, clinicians and behavioral-health-care facilities can provide tailored treatments for people with conditions such as depression and addiction. They can also use AI to assess the quality of their services and find ways to improve as providers of mental-health care.

These advancements also bring up important ethical and privacy considerations. As technology becomes more involved in mental-health care, ensuring data security, confidentiality, and equitable access to services must be top priorities.

How an AI-powered mobile app provides treatment

Dr. Christopher Romig, the director of innovation at the mental-health clinic Stella, said he saw great potential with AI "aiding in early diagnosis, personalized treatment plans, and monitoring patient progress."

There's a reason for this anticipated gain in momentum, he added: "Because there's such a huge shortage in this country of mental-health-care providers, AI is going to be a key component moving forward in terms of support and interventions."

Click Therapeutics, a biotechnology company that develops AI-powered software for medical treatments and interventions, helps patients through a mobile app. The software can work independently or in conjunction with pharmacotherapies to treat conditions such as depression, migraines, and obesity.

The company's algorithm collects and analyzes patient data, including symptom severity and sleep-wake cycles, from the app. It uses this information to identify patterns and correlations to provide tailored treatment strategies.

It also leverages digital biomarkers such as smartphone sensors. For example, the sensors can monitor a patient's heart rate to detect high stress; the algorithm can then recommend mindfulness exercises, relaxation techniques, or cognitive-behavioral-therapy modules within the app. "It's bona fide therapeutics that are changing the brain," Shaheen Lakhan, the chief medical officer of Click Therapeutics, told Business Insider.

Patients can share these insights with their healthcare providers to give a more comprehensive understanding of their conditions and behaviors. The metrics can inform treatment decisions and improve care results. "You're the active ingredient, meaning you have to engage in it," Daniel Rimm, the head of product, said.

In January, Click Therapeutics announced the Food and Drug Administration would help accelerate the development of the company's software for treating schizophrenia. Research suggests that this use case could significantly benefit from digital therapeutics.

Dr. Haig Goenjian, the principal investigator and medical director at CenExel CNS, told BI that patients who used prescription digital therapeutics in a schizophrenia-focused study said the approach "changed the way they socialize" and "that they are better able to navigate their schizophrenia symptoms to function in the real world."

"At the end of our studies, many patients asked how they can continue to use this digital therapeutic," he added.

How an AI platform is helping mental-health-care providers improve their services

The AI platform Lyssn is another tech-driven tool for mental-health services. It provides on-demand training modules for clients such as behavioral-health-care providers who want to improve engagement and sessions with their patients.

Providers can record therapy sessions with the consent of their patients and use Lyssn's AI tech to evaluate factors such as speech patterns and tone from both parties to better understand how to effectively converse and improve their approach to sessions.

"There's a need for more, and there's a need for better," Lyssn's cofounder and chief psychotherapy-science officer, Zac Imel, said, referring to the countrywide shortage of mental-health workers.

Imel and Lyssn's chief technology officer, Michael Tanana, said it's hard to evaluate the quality of service being provided because sessions between mental-health-care professionals and patients are private and, therefore, difficult to monitor. Lyssn aims to hold providers accountable for improved care, especially because "the quality of mental-health care is highly variable," Imel said.

Tanana, who also cofounded Lyssn, added that "we need ways to ensure quality" as more people seek access to mental-health services. The developers at Lyssn keep this in mind as they train their AI tech to recognize both problematic and successful conversation styles, Imel said.

For example, Lyssn can analyze a provider's responses during conversations that require cultural sensitivity; this includes gauging how curious they are about the client's experience and whether they're anxious when talking about such topics. Based on its evaluation, the platform can give providers immediate feedback on their skills and suggest certain training and tools to help them learn and improve.

Darin Carver, a licensed therapist and assistant clinical director at Weber Human Services, uses Lyssn to improve patient outcomes. "Clinicians have near-immediate access to session-specific information about how to improve their clinical work," he told BI.

He added that supervisors also have access to skills-based feedback generated from session reports, which they use to transform fuzzy recollections from clinicians into hard facts about which skills they used and need improvement.

Carver said feedback and advanced analytics are essential treatment decisions. "We can drill down to what our real training needs are and which clinicians and areas need help," he said. "It's been a game changer."

Concerns with AI in mental health

There's still a need for human-led regulation when using AI in mental-health services. AI algorithms can perpetuate biases and stereotypes from the data they're trained on.

To account for issues, Lyssn creates a detailed annual report that evaluates the performance of its training and quality-assurance models for helping people from historically marginalized communities. The company also partners with leading universities to assess the tech's multicultural competency.

Stringent compliance regulations are also needed to protect patient privacy and confidentiality. Lyssn, for instance, uses encrypted data transfers and storage, two-factor authentication, and regular external compliance audits to help thwart data leaks. Now that tech-driven care is evolving, Carver said, mental-health professionals have a duty to ethically use AI to improve people's health and well-being.

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