An app to develop emotional intelligence: what it builds and where AI chatbots reach their limits

What do support chatbots built on language models lack?

Empathy, attention to context and safeguards against harmful responses - that is how researchers describe the weak spots of language-model chatbots for psychological support in a recent paper on arXiv. Attention to context is the whole day behind a single sentence: without it, a reply fits the message and misses the person.

That is why newer systems are learning to read a person's state before they reply. The same paper describes PromptSense: before the request reaches the model, it assesses the mood and signs of depression in the message, filters it against a set of rules and builds the prompt with the emotions and the level of risk in mind. The model then receives the message together with a hint about the state in which it was written.

But even a system like this works from the outside. The machine highlights the state: it assesses the mood and signs of depression in the text and takes them into account in its reply. Noticing your own state as it happens, and changing it, is something you learn yourself, and highlighting from the outside does not build that skill for you.

What can an app help you practise?

An app helps you practise what repeats every day: noticing your state, naming it and seeing what it is made of. Until a feeling is named, the mind does not recognise it, and there is nothing to manage.

The first ability is awareness, or the inner observer: the capacity to see your own states and reactions from the outside while they are happening. The observer registers “irritation is rising” while the conversation is still going on, and you get a pause in which to choose. That pause grows out of repetition: each state check-in is one repetition.

The second is feedback: information about where an action led, which you use to adjust the next step. In relationships, other people provide it; in a diary, you get it from the person you were yesterday. You read the entry with a calm head and can see which feeling set off a sharp remark and how it played out afterwards. The AI assistant's review adds one key question for yourself to the entry, and you are the one who answers it.

What still belongs to live practice with people?

Reading another person is practised alongside another person. Reading means tracking the verbal and non-verbal signs that show a person's state and how it changes: words, voice, pauses, posture, face, pace.

The app helps here too. When the moment of the day is a conversation, the other person goes into the entry as well: what they said, how their voice changed, where a pause hung in the air. But only the other person can confirm a guess about what they feel, when you ask a simple “What's going on with you right now?”, and you can only adjust to their pace and voice in a live conversation.

So the two practices complement each other: daily entries in the app and group work, where another person's reaction is visible straight away. Training with live sessions for adults and teams is run by the school Intellektor.

How do you choose an app to develop emotional intelligence?

• It helps you notice your state as it happens. A check-in should take seconds, otherwise it gets put off until the evening and the moment is gone. In Akadem1k, the scale from 1 to 10 takes 30 seconds, and reminders arrive in Telegram and as push notifications on your phone.
• It breaks an experience down into the event, the feeling and the body's reaction. A vague “it all hit me” gives you nothing to work with. When the three parts are written down separately, you can see where the reaction could have gone differently. That is how an entry in Akadem1k is structured: what happened, what you felt, where it registered in your body, what you did. A palette of 100 feelings helps you find the exact word, and you mark the place in the body by tapping a silhouette.
• It shows how things change over time instead of handing out ready-made advice. Advice written for everyone misses one person's habitual reaction, while the trend shows exactly that. In Akadem1k, the calendar and the chart show where your state is heading, the weekly summary, available from 10 entries, brings together what keeps repeating, and the review of each entry ends with one question for yourself and one action for today, both drawn from that same entry.

An app builds the skill when it meets three conditions:

Where are the limits of an app and of a chatbot?

• The skill takes shape over a month or two of regular entries; a week will not be enough. Waiting that long is not easy, and early markers help: separate observations arrive at the 5th, 30th and 70th complete entry.
• An entry comes after the event, so in the heat of the moment the skill does not kick in straight away. A short check-in right in the moment helps: 30 seconds on the scale. With every entry you work through, you recognise the reaction earlier, while the conversation is still going on.
• An app and a chatbot work with text, and in a crisis that is not enough. If an entry contains thoughts of death or of self-harm, Akadem1k shows helplines instead of a review: this case is planned for in advance.
• Clinical depression is a doctor's territory: neither an app nor a chatbot treats it. Akadem1k is a self-observation tool; it does not make diagnoses and does not replace help from a specialist. When things have been hard for a long time with no let-up, the next step is an appointment with a doctor.

Where can you start today?

A machine can highlight a state: assess the mood of a message, notice signs of risk, ask a precise question about an entry. The skill of noticing and changing your state is one you build yourself, repetition by repetition, and the app makes those repetitions short and regular.

A first step for today: when your state shifts, stop and answer three questions for yourself - “What just happened?”, “What feeling came up?”, “Where did I feel it in my body?”. It is easy: 30 seconds, and the moment has already been noticed. Then the answers go into an entry, which takes about 2 minutes, and the review arrives straight away.

All the ways to open the app are gathered on one page, and each tool is explained in detail on the How it works page. You can start for free; subscription terms are on the Pricing page.

Questions and answers

Can an app develop emotional intelligence?

Yes, the part that grows through repetition: noticing your state, naming the feeling and seeing what a reaction was made of. The skill takes shape over a month or two of regular entries. Reading other people and adjusting to them is then practised live, in conversation and in a group.

How do you choose an app to develop emotional intelligence?

By three signs. The app helps you notice your state as it happens; it breaks an experience down into the event, the feeling and the body's reaction; and it shows change over time instead of ready-made advice: what repeats from one entry to the next. Akadem1k works this way: a check-in in 30 seconds, an entry with a palette of 100 feelings and a weekly summary from 10 entries.

What do AI chatbots for psychological support lack?

Researchers name three things: empathy, attention to context and safeguards against harmful responses. Newer systems such as PromptSense are learning to assess the mood and signs of depression in a message in advance and to build the request to the model with the level of risk in mind. In this way the machine highlights a person's state, while changing it is something the person learns to do themselves.

What is awareness in emotional intelligence?

It is the inner observer: the ability to see your own states and reactions from the outside while they are happening. The observer notices “irritation is rising” while the conversation is still going on, and you get a pause to choose what to do. It is built through short state check-ins throughout the day.

What does “reading” a person mean?

Reading is tracking the verbal and non-verbal signs that show a person's state and how it changes: words, voice, pauses, posture, face, pace. In an entry about a conversation you can practise it from memory, and a guess about someone else's feeling is checked by asking them directly: “What's going on with you right now?”

Can an app help with depression?

Clinical depression is a doctor's territory; neither an app nor a chatbot treats it. Akadem1k is a self-observation tool: it does not make diagnoses and does not replace help from a specialist. When things have been hard for a long time with no let-up, the next step is an appointment with a doctor.