Your kid's school therapist is a llama named Kiwi.
US schools use Alongside AI chatbot to monitor students' mental health
A middle school counselor in Putnam County, Florida, got a "severe" alert on her phone at 7pm. A student had been typing into a chatbot after school hours. The AI flagged it. She spent her evening on the phone with the student's mom and then called the police.
Hundreds of schools across the US are using automated monitoring tools like Alongside, which walks students through their emotions via a chat with a cartoon llama named Kiwi. The platform is in more than 200 schools. Starting price is about $10 per student per year, and at least nine similar companies have received funding since 2022.
The counselor at the center of that 7pm alert says it worked. The student is alive and in ninth grade now, and he makes a point to greet her in the hall. But the system has limits. Some middle school boys test it by typing fake abuse scenarios into the chat — just to see if anyone is watching. She can tell from their body language whether it's real. The AI cannot.
Privacy experts note these chatbots don't carry the same protections as conversations with a licensed therapist. The tool catches what's in the text. It can't hear how someone's voice sounds, or see a student's hands shaking. One clinical social worker summed it up: "You can't replace human connection, human judgment."