SEATTLE, Feb. 09, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — mpathic, a clinician-founded AI safety company, today announced its expansion to support foundational model developers and LLM-powered application teams as AI becomes a first-line interface for youth, mental health, medical, and other high-risk situations. This move brings the company’s clinically grounded solutions to a broader set of AI developers and enterprise partners, resulting in 5X quarter-over-quarter growth at the end of 2025.
Drawing on years of work in clinical trials and hospital settings, mpathic helps AI teams stress-test model behavior before deployment, evaluate responses against clinically grounded standards, and monitor live interactions with safeguards that can flag, redirect, or intervene when needed. In one early engagement with an AI model builder, mpathic’s clinician-led evaluation and human data program helped reduce undesired model responses by more than 70 percent.
Built by Clinicians for a New Class of AI Risk
mpathic was founded in Seattle by board-certified psychologist and NLP researcher Dr. Grin Lord after seeing children, clinicians, and patients increasingly turn to AI tools before human support, often in moments of distress, mental health concerns, and other high-stakes situations. Dr. Lord was joined by co-founder and Chief Information Officer Dr. Danielle Schlosser, a leading San Francisco clinician and tech innovator. Together with mpathic’s team of top clinicians and researchers, they have become the foremost experts in translating real-world clinical judgment into repeatable safety workflows for AI systems.
“AI is increasingly the first line response in our most vulnerable and risky moments, whether in the doctor’s office, in 24/7 chats with teens, or in other high-risk situations. It’s crucial that we accept and embrace this reality, and ensure that those interactions rise to the occasion,” said Dr. Grin Lord, CEO and Founder of mpathic. “We’ve pressure-tested our approach in clinical trials and hospital settings, and we’re now bringing that rigor and resulting impact to the AI builders whose products touch billions of lives.”
Early Impact in High-Risk AI Deployments
mpathic turns expert clinical judgment into repeatable workflows that help AI teams find failure patterns in sensitive scenarios, benchmark and improve model behavior using clinician-generated evaluation datasets, and monitor live interactions so they can apply safeguards that reduce risk before issues reach users.
In one early engagement, an AI model builder faced rare but high-risk conversations involving severe distress signals, including self-harm, suicidality, and crisis states, alongside patterns of emotional over-reliance on AI support. mpathic rapidly deployed a clinician-led program in which hundreds of licensed, multilingual mental health clinicians created ground-truth evaluation datasets across multiple risk domains. As a result, their client saw undesired AI responses drop by over 70 percent.
A Fortune 100 AI lab shared with the mpathic team, “It’s so crucial that you all exist. We’ve worked with other vendors that don’t understand how to find the mental health expertise we need. We’re very thankful to be working together.”
Trust and Momentum Across the Foundational AI Ecosystem
mpathic works with leading foundational AI model developers serving tens of millions of users, organizations deploying AI in sensitive settings, and clinical partners including Panasonic WELL, Seattle Children’s Hospital and more.
As safety becomes central to deployment strategy, the company reported 5X quarter-over-quarter growth last quarter.
“Over the past year, we’ve seen a clear shift,” said Dr. Danielle Schlosser, Co-Founder and Chief Information Officer. “AI systems are no longer just tools, but rather companions, advisors, and emotional touchpoints. I’m thrilled that mpathic is at the helm of navigating this new frontier, creating safe experiences for users worldwide.”
Following an additional $15 million financing closed in 2025, led by Foundry VC, mpathic is expanding its global network of licensed experts, accelerating its human data and benchmarking platform, and growing its real-time safety and SaaS offerings.
As part of this growth, the company announced a growing leadership team, with Rebekah Bastian, founding team at Zillow and exited founder, joining as Chief Marketing Officer, and Dr. Alison Cerezo, Fierce 50 2025 and American Psychological Association AI advisory member, named as Chief Science Officer.
mpathic is currently hiring for several roles: https://mpathic.ai/careers/
About mpathic:
mpathic is keeping humans safe in the AI era with experts and software that are rooted in psychology and powered by clinicians. The company works with leading AI model builders, application teams and clinical researchers to understand and protect people, reducing the world’s biggest human risks.
Media Contact:
Nectar Communications
mpathic@nectarpr.com
