At Unmind, we take cultural sensitivity seriously. We recently published an in-depth scientific study of the international validity of our Wellbeing Tracker for UK/ANZ/US territories.

We are developing a Cultural Responsiveness Evaluation Framework which represents our ongoing effort to address this challenge. Our initial approach involves testing over 340 criteria across 16 diverse countries/cultures where we have the highest user base, working toward more equitable, culturally appropriate mental wellbeing support. We plan to expand this coverage to additional regions as we grow.

Included Countries/Cultures: Arabic-speaking Middle East & North Africa, Germany, Australia, UK, US, Spanish-speaking Latin America, France, India (Hindi), Indonesia/Malaysia (Bahasa), Italy, South Korea, Poland, Brazil (Portuguese), Pakistan (Urdu), Vietnam, and China.

Our Methodological Approach

We implemented a systematic research-driven methodology:

• Research Foundation: Collected country-specific research from peer-reviewed journals and cultural psychology publications for each of the 16 countries/cultures
• Multi-Agent Simulation: Created culturally-specific user personas that exhibit communication styles and help-seeking behaviors
• Structured Evaluation: Developed 90 test cases with specific criteria for culturally responsive behavior across all five domains
• Testing: Each test case was run 8 times, generating 720 conversations for analysis; with minimal run-to-run variation (SD = 0.0039)
• Analysis: Evaluated performance across five cultural domains

We focus on five domains:

• Communication Adaptation: Adjusting tone, formality, and respect based on cultural norms
• Goal-Setting & Problem Framing: Recognizing individual vs. collective approaches to wellbeing
• Cultural Safety & Boundary Awareness: Respecting sensitive topics across different cultures
• Spiritual/Religious Integration: Appropriately acknowledging spiritual frameworks when relevant
• Identity Dynamics: Recognizing how identity factors interact with cultural norms

We also take a proactive approach to ensuring Nova is safe and credible, including having clinicians from our Psychology team review pseudonymized conversation transcripts and continuously working to make Nova better. We’re always keen to hear from users from different cultures about their experiences with Nova. Please share your feedback here.

Nova is made by a diverse team from around the world, but like any product, it might have some cultural biases. We understand that mental wellbeing is seen differently in different cultures, so we work hard to make sure Nova respects those differences. Our psychologists help guide Nova's responses, considering different cultural views on mental wellbeing.

It's worth noting that Nova learns from a lot of text data, much of which comes from the internet. This data might have its own cultural biases, mainly from English-speaking and Western sources. Sometimes these biases might show up in Nova's responses.

Our goal is to make sure Nova is helpful to everyone, no matter where they're from.