Microsoft is seemingly developing an AI-powered therapist feature for Windows and an intelligent emotion-based journaling capability for Teams and Microsoft 365.
Microsoft had initially released a patent earlier this month, filed on November 7, indicating it was working on an emotion-focused therapy Copilot for Microsoft and Windows users.
The abstract for the patent read:
A method and apparatus for providing emotional care in a session between a user and a conversational agent(...) Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbot is becoming more and more popular, and is being applied in an increasing number of scenarios. The chatbot is designed to simulate people’s conversation, and may chat with users by text, speech, image, etc"
Last week, Microsoft published another patent outlining its development of an AI-powered emotion-centred journaling feature. The patent for the emotional management system suggests it might be integrated with other Microsoft platforms, including Teams and 365 apps, as well as the Windows operating system.
Both patents suggest that Microsoft is developing separate tools intending to leverage AI to support users' emotional well-being across its OS and suite of platforms.
The AI Therapist
Firstly, the therapist builds a user profile by inferring emotional states through user-provided images. It subsequently develops a memory record predicated on the images and the user profile.
Microsoft's patent for the chatbot suggests the feature will be structured with a chat window, a processing module, and an answer database. The therapist also includes distinct modules for answering prompts, generating new memories, assessing emotions, storing user data, and testing users.
These modules, in theory, enable the chatbot to recall past conversations and utilise that information and users' emotional responses to that conversation in future chats. For example, the chatbot should be able to recognise what the users said they had for dinner last week and bring it during a therapy "session".
Impressively — or alarmingly, depending on your point of view — the AI therapist theoretically can also offer personalised dietary and medication advice based on a user's health situation.
It can also perform psychological tests on users by explicitly asking them questions and assessing their responses before using that analysis to offer feedback to users. The process entails an "implicit" psychological test, which can be prompted by the user's emotional state, the conversation points of the current session, and more. When prompted, the AI therapist chooses relevant psychological questions informed by the current session, user profile, and answer database.
The Emotion-Focused Journaling Feature
The emotional management system intends to be ostensibly a therapeutic journaling process, with less direct input from a conversational agent, but Microsoft wants it to be used in a work environment.
The "emotional insight management system" works by messaging users with personalised prompts about filling in their well-being journal with their current emotional state. Users can choose the time of the customised prompts.
Example questions the patent suggests are "Did you sleep well last night?" or "Did you not have time for lunch today?" The prompt also uses an emoji ranking system from 1-5 for the question "How is working going today?" for users to complete to what extent they are happy, fulfilled and in control vs unhappy, unfulfilled or stressed.
