An uptick in mental health awareness and workplace imbalances has put the dialogue around bullying and harassment in the workplace to the forefront. However, so many people still find it scary and risky to speak up about their experiences. Studies have found that around 72% of workplace sexual harassment victims chose not to report it. Rather than communicating with a person, people say that they feel much more comfortable talking to a robot. And even though many companies today have a corporate harassment policy, the reporting system doesn't function as expected. 

Besides the social stigma and broken system, neuroscientist Julia Shaw also found that our memories behave differently around negative emotional events. People who had traumatic experiences are more likely to have fragmented memories, where important details are forgotten. Therefore, giving victims the tool and agency to log their experience is crucial. 

Designed to make disclosing information much easier and safer, Spot is an AI reporting platform that tackles workplace bullying and harassment. Using an encrypted chatbot as a neutral third party, the platform allows victims of harassment to safely and anonymously communicate the incident with HR. By following a few guided questions, users can quickly record crucial information about the inappropriate behaviour – for themselves or as a witness. “The sooner you record something, the better it’s going to be in terms of quality,” says Shaw. “And the more weight it’s going to carry in terms of telling other people that this is what happened, and this is what you remembered at the time.”

For those who aren’t sure if what they experienced is a real harassment case, Spot provides a handbook of detailed examples and legal concepts to assess it on their own terms. Once the key pieces of evidence are collected, Spot will automatically generate a report of the incident, which is only accessible by the person who created it. In order to keep the reporting process organised and informed, Spot also enables employers and HR to timely track and follow up the progress by interacting with the bot. 

Co-founded in 2017 with All Turtles, an AI studio founded by former Evernote CEO Phil Libin, Spot is the world’s first bot that applies cognitive interview techniques to help victims of harassment record their experiences. Ever since its launch, the platform has gained much attention from both individuals and large employers. Three weeks after the release, more than 3,000 people had visited their website and around 200 talked about their experiences with the bot. Today, Spot also provides courses and training on preventing discrimination, stereotyping and similar unwanted actions in the workplace.

Currently, Spot collaborates with several leading workflow management companies such as Workday, Slack, Zenefits, Namely and BambooHR. The app is now available in languages such as English, Spanish, French and German. Aiming to further facilitate a healthy workplace for everyone, the team continues to build new AI technologies and scientific-proof evidencing into the platform.