Felix Deng¹ and Austin Amakye Ansah², ¹USA, ²California State Polytechnic University, USA

Companion Connect, an innovative digital application designed to mitigate student loneliness and promote positive mental health outcomes through a blend of AI-powered companionship and human volunteer support. Recognizing loneliness as a rising issue in higher education impacting student well-being, the app aims to address limitations of traditional support systems by offering accessible, on-demand resources. Companion Connect, powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, is specialized for mental health tasks, featuring customizable AI personality and name, mood detection capabilities, and weekly social challenges to encourage engagement in therapeutic activities. It also includes an MBTI quiz to further tailor AI responses to the user's personality. A survey conducted with 15 participants across various demographics evaluated the app's effectiveness. Results indicate a notable improvement in overall average mood scores, rising from 2.27 before app use to 4.73 after. Furthermore, 14 of 15 respondents reported that the app improved their mental state, with common alleviated symptoms including loneliness, anxiety, and lack of motivation. The app also demonstrated a high recommendation rate, with 14 out of 15 participants willing to recommend it to others. These findings suggest Companion Connect is a promising tool for fostering emotional balance and well-being among students.

AI, Language Model, Website, Mental Health