Meet ‘Boon’, a 24-hour companion
Gentle AI guardian on the TourHeart+ platform aims to guide, one tête-à-tête at a time
16 April 2026
The city never truly sleeps, yet between midnight and dawn a young mother finds a moment of calm. As her newborn stirs beside her, she opens her phone – not to scroll, but to talk to “Boon”, an artificial‑intelligence (AI) companion with an unexpectedly human voice. “Boon helps me remember how to care for myself,” she tells the TourHeart+ research team. “Even when I’m exhausted, it reminds me that a small pause can make a big difference.”
Across the city, a university student feels anxious as deadlines close in. Counselling slots are booked up. Searching for a reprieve, he turns to TourHeart+. Within minutes, Boon’s calm tone helps him steady his breath. “It was like having a quiet friend who understood,” he recalls. “I didn’t have to wait in silence.”
Everyday transformations
Their stories echo across Hong Kong, where TourHeart+ has steadily grown into a reliable support for mental well-being, according to Professor Winnie Mak Wing-sze and her team at CUHK’s Department of Psychology.
Founded in 2017, TourHeart+ originally set out to be a hybrid digital-offline mental health platform filled with evidence-based approaches such as mindfulness, cognitive-behavioural and positive psychology. Over the years, it has grown far beyond its roots, now supporting more than 64,000 registered users. The most recent development is the AI companion, Boon, trained to support reflection, emotional balance, and personal strength.
The urgency is clear. Territory‑wide data shows record levels of depression and anxiety, with nearly one in three people experiencing moderate to severe symptoms. Young people are the most affected: 43.5% of Gen Z aged 18–24 reported moderate to severe depression, and 32.7% similar levels of anxiety, according to the seventh Hong Kong Depression Index Survey conducted by CUHK’s Department of Social Work and the Mental Health Association of Hong Kong in March 2026. AI assistants ranked sixth among sources of help, prompting experts to warn that over‑reliance on technology may delay professional care.
Professor Mak’s team saw both promise and peril. “AI can extend access,” she says, “but it must never pretend to replace human care.” TourHeart+ was designed precisely around that principle, not just to accompany people through difficult moments, but to be a steady presence along their self-care journey while guiding them gently back to real-world resources.
Let’s talk
Last October marked a pivotal turning point: the debut of a fully conversational Boon. What started years ago as a simple, rule-based chatbot with many predefined topics has evolved into a responsive companion fluent in written English, Cantonese and Mandarin.
From late 2025 to early April 2026, Boon “chatted” with over 2,000 active users in more than 5,000 tête-à-têtes. Unlike generic AI helpers, Boon speaks like a motivational interviewer, a conversational approach refined by psychologists to encourage reflection of behavioural change.
Boon does not diagnose or prescribe. It listens, asks, and walks beside the user. The exchanges are short, typically five or six turns, but they help people articulate their thoughts, set small goals and begin to act on them.
Interestingly, more than one in five users choose to “Start Directly,” bypassing preset modules altogether. “People live complex lives,” says Professor Mak. “They don’t always fit into neat categories, and our system should honour that.”
Among the chosen themes, “Taking Care of Emotions” and “Managing Stress” top the list. Work pressure, rather than family or romantic conflict, is the most common trigger – a reflection of the city’s relentless pace. In response, the team has introduced mini-modules to help users build self-care habits, overcome procrastination, transform conflicts, communicate more effectively, and build healthy relationships.
AI Mental Health Companion Boon empowers users to embed self-care into daily routines (video courtesy of TourHeart+ team)
Quiet guardians behind the screen
What makes TourHeart+ unique, however, is not the technology but its ethical backbone, a “human-in-the-loop” safety system designed to protect users without giving a sense of intrusion.
Anonymised conversations are monitored for red flags – patterns that may indicate distress. When triggered, the system does not automate a cold alert. Instead, it provides grounding exercises, crisis hotlines, and a respectful invitation to seek help. The choice always rests with the individual. Privacy remains intact.
For students, this bridge extends directly to their university’s counselling services. Nine institutions, including CUHK, HKU, HKUST, CityUHK and PolyU, now partner with TourHeart+. Through institutional email registration and clear consent protocols, students can allow the platform to share minimal information with campus wellness centres when significant concern arises.
For adults outside the university network, the same principle applies. Referrals can lead users to community resources such as the Integrated Community Centres for Mental Wellness or nonprofit helplines. Every alert is reviewed by trained practitioners who refine responses so that the system stays caring, not clinical.
Designed for autonomy, not dependence
From conception, the team had built AI companion, Boon, on the foundation of self-determination theory, cultivating autonomy, competence and relatedness. “We wanted Boon to feel like a supportive friend who eventually reminds you, ‘You can do this on your own’,” says Professor Mak.
The data confirms this ethos. Users typically leave each conversation with a strengthened focus and short, achievable goals. Some return periodically to check in; others re‑engage only when life tilts off balance again.
Clinical assessments show encouraging outcomes, which extend beyond the use of Boon. In a longitudinal study conducted between October 2024 and March 2025, among 165 students who have used the platform, depressive symptoms declined by over 20%, anxiety levels dropped by 17%, while measures of overall wellbeing also rose by 14% after 4 months. Users described the experience as “a safe place to exhale” – a space to gather themselves before meeting the demands of life again.
“These numbers remind us that small, well-timed support can ripple outwards,” Professor Mak says. “People rediscover personal agency, and that matters immensely.”
Human touch
Every new feature of TourHeart+ begins not in the laboratory, but with users’ voices. Before each release, prototypes are tested alongside interviews and surveys conducted with users across different age and language groups to understand their needs and pain points.
In one trial, three conversational styles were launched simultaneously, each varying in prompt frequency and tone. The team continually conducts testing, gathers feedback, and enhances Boon’s design to create a thoughtful, concise, and natural experience.
While Boon’s audio functionality is still under development, its audio voice was recorded by the platform’s own clinical psychologist rather than synthetic generators. Every inflection is tuned to reflect warmth and respect – evidence, again, that empathy remains at the heart of the code. The team is actively optimising user experience, with further refinement underway.
Beyond Boon: Young advocates step up
TourHeart+ reaches well beyond screens. Partnering with StoryTaler, the platform launched a Mental Health Impact Generation Training (College Student Edition) last November as a pioneering effort to empower young adults aged 18 to 29 to raise awareness about building a mental health-friendly campus and to advocate for a more inclusive, compassionate, and empowering learning environment for the future.
With more than 100 applications, only 25 were selected for the inaugural training. All the participants shared a common aim: to make mental wellness a shared responsibility rather than a private matter. The training reimagines mental health promotion beyond symptom‑spotting, encouraging participants to build supportive environments in the community, where checking in on emotional wellbeing feels as natural as greeting a colleague.
“Resilience grows in relationships” one student says. “It’s not about diagnosing others; it’s about learning how to listen and empathise.”
The participants are writing a practical guidebook for tertiary institution staff, unpacking five core communication principles: confidentiality, trauma-informed practice, boundaries, empowerment, and person-centred care. These principles help shape campus environments where psychological safety can take root.
Healing that begins with listening
Professor Mak sees in these developments the quiet fulfilment of the TourHeart+ founding vision: that digital tools can facilitate people rediscover the human capacity for care.
“We never set out to replace counsellors,” she says softly. “We wanted to make sure that no one has to wait alone.”
In a city where psychiatric wait lists stretch beyond two years and private care remains costly, such support can be lifechanging. TourHeart+ cannot solve systemic shortages, but it can provide timely support, and Boon can hold space – a beacon of light in between appointments. Each conversation becomes a quiet meeting point between AI precision and human compassion, guided by a clear purpose: not to foster dependence on machines, but to help people return to themselves and to one another.
Users often end their sessions with micro-goals: taking a short walk, spending five mindful minutes before the next meeting, or starting a brave conversation. Over time, those small steps gather strength. They build a rhythm of well-being.
By Jenny Lau
Photos by Yau Hung-kee, courtesy of interviewees
