Why AI Therapy and Journaling Doesn’t Work (Yet)

31 May 2025

These days, everyone chats with their favorite AI. Many apps promise a richer experience than standard GPT by offering a more personalized touch — saving your past conversations, showing you charts, and layering additional features on top of GPT to make it feel more therapeutic.

But let’s take a step back.

AI journaling, at its core, aims to replicate a human therapy session. You talk, and the system responds, ideally with a short reflection and a follow-up question that nudges you gently out of your comfort zone or highlights a subtle inconsistency in your thinking. The end goal is often clarity, emotional relief, or some form of resolution.
In a real therapy session, the therapist takes notes, asks about your background, and gets to know you over time. It’s a gradual process — one built on understanding and familiarity.
So when it comes to AI journaling or shadow work, you expect the AI to ask the right questions — the kind that challenge your assumptions and reveal your blind spots. But how can an AI do that if it doesn’t even know what your comfort zone is?

To truly work, AI therapy needs to behave like an ongoing therapeutic relationship — and that’s exactly what Noetly is about.

Every user receives a private, personalized AI therapist model.

1. Character assessments – Early on, you’ll take a few assessments so your model gets a basic sense of who you are. From there, the model tailors its questions. For example, after a breakup, your reflections will look different depending on your Relationships Attachment Style. If you’re anxiously attached, a long period of no contact might be exactly what you need, but the AI needs to know that to offer meaningful insight.

2. Training on your past sessions – This is where it gets powerful. Your model doesn’t just know your background — it also tracks your thinking patterns and how you’ve evolved over time. Just like a real therapist, it remembers what you’ve discussed and how far you’ve come.

What makes Noetly different is this personalized approach. Each person gets their own private AI model. It’s trained on your initial assessments and then continuously refined based on your journaling sessions — anonymously, of course.

Surprisingly we get something that feels close to having a private therapist.
The more you journal with Noetly, the better your model understands you. Some users report major insights only after 10+ sessions, once their model has developed a real sense of intuition.
To make it feel more like a real therapist, Noetly is voice based — you can freely speak your mind, and Noetly listens to your tone, understanding you far better than through text alone.
So, can AI journaling really work? Absolutely — but only when it evolves with you.
Welcome to Noetly.