Chris from Sonia Health discusses the potential of AI to alleviate the mental health crisis by developing Sonia, an AI therapist modeled on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). The article highlights the historical context of AI in therapy, beginning with ELIZA in 1964, and notes the limitations of current AI models like ChatGPT due to their lack of domain-specific conversation structures. Sonia aims to overcome these limitations by modeling CBT sessions as finite-state machines to balance structure and flexibility, using LangChain's framework for structured retrieval and prompting. The AI therapist is designed to respond contextually to clients throughout the session's stages, implementing asynchronous checks for emergencies and utilizing therapeutic worksheets when necessary. The authors express enthusiasm for the potential of AI to make mental health care more accessible and affordable while acknowledging the need for careful integration of human oversight. The innovations in the project are supported by tools like LangGraph, which facilitate the creation of multi-agent workflows, demonstrating the broader applicability of these technologies in various conversational AI applications.