A Hybrid AI-Assisted Framework for Anxiety Support: System Description and Exploratory Findings Among University Students

A growing number of individuals experiencing anxiety and other mental health difficulties require accessible approaches to mental health support. This paper presents a hybrid AI-assisted framework designed as a potential complementary support tool for future therapist-supervised mental health care rather than as a replacement for clinical decision-making. The framework integrates a flexible dialogue-generation architecture, an interactive embodied avatar, and an ethical and safety-oriented component emphasizing privacy and human-centered governance. An exploratory survey including structured and open-ended questions was conducted with 102 university students following a live demonstration of the proposed framework. Overall, 76.2% of participants agreed or strongly agreed that AI could help some people with mental health support, 59.4% indicated that they would use AI-assisted support if freely available, while 55.0% preferred interacting with a human therapist. Open-ended responses highlighted accessibility and continuous availability as potential advantages, while concerns included emotional understanding, privacy, and the accuracy and reliability of AI-generated responses. These findings provide preliminary information about university students’ perceptions following exposure to the proposed framework but do not constitute an evaluation of therapeutic effectiveness, clinical utility, or clinical safety. Further research involving direct user interaction, clinically relevant populations, validated outcome measures, and appropriate safety protocols is needed.