There is a problem at the heart of mental healthcare that begins even after someone decides to seek help. The first session asks a patient to compress months, sometimes years, of emotions, triggers, and behavioural changes into a conversation with someone they have just met. The clinician, meanwhile, must listen, document, and begin constructing a meaningful picture from information inevitably shaped by memory and whatever the patient happens to recall.

AI is increasingly being explored to understand what single conversations may miss. Bengaluru-based Entropik, for instance, uses multimodal AI to interpret behavioural and emotional signals for consumer research, while Assessli develops Large Behavioral Models to understand individual behaviour.

Mental health presents a different and arguably more sensitive test of the same technological proposition. It is here that Adhiraj Chauhan, the young founder behind Delta AI Revolution, is focusing his efforts.

The First Session Problem

India makes a compelling test case. The country has approximately 0.75 psychiatrists for every 100,000 people, compared with the three per 100,000 recommended by the World Health Organization. Add the WHO's estimate that one in seven adolescents globally experiences a mental health disorder, and the imbalance becomes difficult to ignore. India has a glaring shortage of people who can provide the help people most need.

Cost, geography, language and stigma add further barriers. Estimates suggest that nearly 200 million Indians remain outside the formal mental healthcare system, whether because professional care is unavailable, unaffordable, geographically distant or simply too socially difficult to seek.

Training more psychiatrists, building more clinics, and expanding coverage remain essential. But these are long-term responses to an immediate problem. The global mental health market has been estimated at close to $400 billion, while India's counselling industry alone has been pegged at more than ₹1,000 crore. Yet the more........

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