  Despite the high prevalence and burden of mental health conditions, there is
a global shortage of mental health providers. Artificial Intelligence (AI)
methods have been proposed as a way to address this shortage, by supporting
providers with less extensive training as they deliver care. To this end, we
developed the AI-Assisted Provider Platform (A2P2), a text-based virtual
therapy interface that includes a response suggestion feature, which supports
providers in delivering protocolized therapies empathetically. We studied
providers with and without expertise in mental health treatment delivering a
therapy session using the platform with (intervention) and without (control)
AI-assistance features. Upon evaluation, the AI-assisted system significantly
decreased response times by 29.34% (p=0.002), tripled empathic response
accuracy (p=0.0001), and increased goal recommendation accuracy by 66.67%
(p=0.001) across both user groups compared to the control. Both groups rated
the system as having excellent usability.
