Sproutiful
We created an AI-powered gut health companion to tackle two of the biggest challenges in digital health: adherence and motivation.
And we did it in just 8 weeks.
Making digital health products accessible, effective and rewarding is complex.
Despite good intentions, it's hard to keep people engaged and motivated with healthcare apps. On average, users abandon them after just 4 days.
We thought we’d take a look at gut health. Improving our gut health has been shown to be one of the most important things we can do to improve our overall health.
Gut health affects everything from our mental well-being and immune function to digestion and overall health. All the research shows that eating 30 different plants a week can improve your microbiome. That can feel daunting. And some of the apps to support gut health are expensive or inaccessible. Food tracking can be laborious and doesn’t always have individual needs and motivations met. So often people lose interest and give up. We wanted to challenge ourselves to see if AI could improve this experience.
We tackled this problem with a purposeful application of AI.
Focusing on the biggest challenges — how to make the experience easy, rewarding, and keep people committed — we tailored AI to address the key barriers to adherence.
The result? Sproutiful, a smart gut health companion. It helps people build better food habits for an improved microbiome and overall wellbeing.
Users are encouraged to eat a greater variety of plants to see their microbe garden grow — a dynamic visual for what's going on in their gut.
Sproutiful's key features — image capture and food tracking, behaviour-led discovery, and motivational coaching — are all supercharged with AI, providing an accessible, intuitive and rewarding experience that's fun to use.
Early indicators from our beta study suggest positive outcomes; in just a few days, we were able to instigate conscious behaviour change.
Adherence is the key metric for the healthcare industry and most user focused apps. It is also one of the hardest challenges to clear. With Sproutiful, we’re using AI to approach it in a creative, joyful way that’s already resonating with users.
- 58%of beta users became more mindful of their food choices
- 75%of beta users ate a greater variety of plants while using the app
- 2.4meals on average were logged per day by each beta user
Beta study based on 55 users and conducted over 5 days
Key features
Multimodal food tracking
Focused on image and text capture, multimodal AI makes food tracking quick, easy and flexible. So people can snap and track their food any time, anywhere.
Behaviour-led discovery
By eating more plants and seeing their microbe garden grow, people are encouraged to track their progress and stick with the experience.
AI-based discovery shows users where there are gaps in their diet, and provides inspiration to explore recipes and suggests fresh ways to increase plant diversity.
Motivational coaching
Developed with scientific advisor Dr Om Lala (Harvard Medical School), evidence-based behavioural coaching is delivered at an individual level.
Using AI, motivational interviewing is integrated with Sproutiful in the form of open-ended chat.
It can understand users' intrinsic motivations and meet them where they are, helping them stay motivated and engaged. This capability offers deep connection with the ability to scale.
Speed to value
We moved fast with this proof of concept to test the core experience. To prove what's possible with AI when you rise above the hype and build with purpose and speed.
Our ambition for AI experimentation was bold — we started training our multimodal capabilities and coaching experience from day 1.
In parallel, we explored user needs and the drivers of behavioural change. And designed and built an experience we're really excited about.
Our focus is always on creating real value for clients. To find out how we can explore opportunities together, experiment with AI and accelerate growth, drop us a line at hello@ustwo.com.
I’ve advised tech giants and startups backed by some of the best venture capitalists in the world, with large product teams, and I’ve never seen a team produce a robust, beautiful, substantive, science-backed product in such a short period.
Request a demo of Sproutiful
See how we’ve created an AI-powered adherence proof of concept in 8 weeks