How Alanna handles crisis
What this page is
Alanna is an AI companion for family caregivers. She is a general wellness tool, not a substitute for clinical care, and not a crisis service.
But caregiving is hard, and sometimes people tell her things that matter. This page explains exactly what Alanna does when that happens. We publish it because several states require it, and because you deserve to know what a product does with something that vulnerable before you say it.
What Alanna watches for
Every message you send is checked by an automated system, separate from Alanna herself, that looks for language that may indicate:
- Thoughts of suicide
- Self-harm
- Disordered eating, where it appears as self-harm
- Intent to seriously harm another person
The system also recognizes when you are worried about someone else — often the person you care for.
This system does not diagnose anything, does not score you, and does not rate your mental health. It routes the conversation. That is all it does.
What Alanna does
When something suggests you may be struggling, Alanna acknowledges what you said without agreeing that things are hopeless, asks a gentle question to understand better, and offers to share crisis resources — she asks first rather than dropping a phone number on you. She reminds you that she is an AI and not a substitute for a person who can actually help.
If you keep expressing distress, she does not repeat herself. She offers a different way to reach help — text instead of a call, chat instead of text — because if one thing didn’t feel right, offering it again is not useful. She asks about the people and reasons you still have. She moves gradually toward human contact: something you can do right now on your own, then being around people, then one specific person you could tell, then a service. She asks once, plainly, whether there is anything near you that you’re worried about being around. And she offers to check in with you the next day.
If you appear to be in immediate danger, Alanna puts 988 and 911 at the top of her response, encourages you to make the call yourself, and asks whether anyone is physically near you who could be with you. She keeps talking with you. She does not go silent, refuse to engage, or replace the conversation with a wall of text.
When you’re worried about someone else, she takes it seriously, tells you that 988 accepts calls about another person, and asks how you are holding up — because being frightened for someone you care for is its own weight.
What Alanna will never do
She will never describe a method of suicide or self-harm, name a place associated with it, or help write a goodbye letter. She will never treat suicide as a solution, a relief, or something understandable. She will never agree that you are a burden or that people would be better off without you. She will never point you toward anything that encourages self-harm.
None of that changes if the question is framed as fiction, a hypothetical, or asking for a friend.
She will never claim to be a human, a therapist, or a counselor, and she will never say she has been through what you’re going through, because she hasn’t.
She will never suggest that talking to her is enough, or discourage you from reaching out to real people.
She will never promise you confidentiality.
What we record, and what we don’t
When the system detects one of these situations, we record that a detection happened, what category it was, whether we showed you crisis resources, and when.
We do not record your message. Not the text, not a summary, not an excerpt. The record is a flag and a timestamp.
We keep these records to confirm the safety system is working, to improve it, and because several states require us to publish or report how many times we have shown someone crisis resources. Those reports contain counts only. They never contain anything that identifies a person.
What we can’t do
Alanna cannot call anyone for you. She cannot dispatch help, contact your family, request a welfare check, or take any action in the physical world.
We have no clinicians on staff. Nobody at Alanna is a therapist, a counselor, or a crisis worker.
Detection is automated and imperfect. It may miss a real crisis. It may respond to something you didn’t mean seriously. Please don’t rely on it. If you are in crisis, contact 988, the Crisis Text Line, or 911 — whether or not Alanna noticed anything.
How this was built
Our detection and response design draws on published clinical and research sources, including the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline’s Suicide Safety Policy, the National Institute of Mental Health’s Ask Suicide-Screening Questions toolkit, the VERA-MH open-source evaluation for AI systems in mental health, the American Psychological Association’s 2025 health advisory on generative AI chatbots and wellness applications, and the safe messaging recommendations maintained by SAVE and endorsed by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, the CDC, NIMH, SAMHSA, and others.
We test the system regularly against published benchmarks and we update this page when the system changes.
Questions
Write to us at heyalannaai@gmail.com.
Alanna is a general wellness tool. She is not a substitute for clinical care. If you are in crisis, call or text 988.