Verke vs. Woebot: what replaces Woebot after the June 2025 shutdown

Woebot Health retired its consumer app on June 30, 2025. Founder Alison Darcy cited regulatory uncertainty for LLM-based therapeutic tools as the reason. About 1.5 million people had used Woebot over its lifetime. Woebot was the pioneer that proved a CBT chatbot could feel like a non-judgmental, always-available thinking partner — and that breaking overwhelming problems into small, concrete steps is something software can do well. If you used Woebot and are looking for a replacement, the current options include Verke, Wysa, and Youper. This page lays out the tradeoffs honestly. Source: STAT News, July 2025.

By Verke Editorial · Last verified: 2026-04-18

Verke is an AI coaching app with five specialist coaches — Anna (psychodynamic), Judith (CBT), Marie (relationships and EFT), Amanda (mental wellness, ACT and CFT), and Mikkel (executive coaching). It runs on iOS, Android, and web, supports voice and text conversations, ships in 55 languages, and is end-to-end encrypted. Verke is coaching inspired by evidence-based therapeutic methods — not a replacement for licensed therapy.

Where Woebot stayed CBT-centric, Verke lets you pick a specialist for the work in front of you — Judith for concrete CBT exercises and structured goals, Anna for psychodynamic pattern recognition, Marie, Amanda, or Mikkel when the work is relational, value-driven, or career-focused. Each coach remembers what you have been working on across weeks, so you can pick up a thread from a session three weeks ago instead of restarting every time. Conversations are available 24/7 in text or voice, and feedback from the ongoing Stockholm University randomized controlled trial has shaped how Verke breaks problems into small, doable next steps and how the coach holds continuity over time.

Woebot was a pioneering AI CBT chatbot developed at Stanford by Alison Darcy, with multiple peer-reviewed studies over roughly a decade that made it one of the most science-grounded conversational CBT tools of its era. The consumer app closed on June 30, 2025. Woebot Health continues B2B integrations with employers, payers, and providers — the company is still operating, but there is no consumer signup. For Woebot Health's own current pitch, see woebothealth.com.

Woebot column reflects the pre-shutdown consumer product, labeled where relevant. Verke column reflects current state. Last verified: 2026-04-18.

Verke is not the only option for former Woebot users. If Verke isn't the fit, Wysa offers a free unlimited text tier with an FDA Breakthrough Device Designation for AI-led CBT, and Youper has a published 2021 JMIR outcome paper showing GAD-7 and PHQ-9 improvement on a CBT-first mobile app. Both are honest alternatives alongside Verke — pick what fits your situation best.

Pick Verke if what you liked about Woebot was the CBT structure — Judith is Verke's CBT specialist coach and the closest direct replacement, with the same emphasis on breaking problems into manageable steps and concrete, structured exercises. Pick Verke if you want to go beyond CBT into psychodynamic, ACT, EFT, CFT, or NVC with a matched specialist instead of one general bot. Pick Verke if you want a coach that remembers your history across weeks, a non-judgmental space available at 3 a.m. as easily as 3 p.m., phone-call-style voice coaching, a UI in one of 55 languages, end-to-end encryption, or the reliability of a paid subscription and an active product team.

Verke's coaching design draws on an ongoing Stockholm University randomized controlled trial and a network of peer-reviewed clinical-psychology literature — building on the evidence trajectory Woebot helped pioneer for conversational CBT. See our research page for the full methodology.