Building a healthier
future for workplaces

Simpatico Ai was born from an insight that was both clinical and human: the tools available to help employees manage their mental health simply weren't working. Employee Assistance Programs saw low uptake, assessments were linear and impersonal, and stigma kept people from reaching out at all.

In 2021, renowned Melbourne-based clinical psychologist Dr Simon Kinsella joined forces with Alistair Wardlaw and the team at Mesh Ai — then already building enterprise AI solutions — to tackle the global workplace mental health crisis head-on. Together they began developing a world-first AI-driven mental health companion grounded in evidence-based psychology.

Research from Stanford University had already demonstrated that people are often more willing to open up to an AI than to a human — removing the fear of judgment and enabling honest, early conversations about wellbeing. Simpatico was built to harness that openness.

Developed in partnership with Microsoft, support by leading Australian universities and launched in 2022, Simpatico Ai quickly established itself as a pioneer in workplace mental health technology. In 2023, the platform launched on Microsoft Teams — becoming the world's first AI-powered workplace mental health tool embedded in Microsoft's productivity stack — and was subsequently featured in Microsoft Copilot. Simpatico Ai is a proud member of the global Microsoft for Startups program.