<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><ns2:project xmlns:ns1="http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk/gtr/api" xmlns:ns2="http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk/gtr/api/project" xmlns:ns3="http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk/gtr/api/fund" xmlns:ns4="http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk/gtr/api/person" xmlns:ns5="http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk/gtr/api/project/outcome" xmlns:ns6="http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk/gtr/api/organisation" ns1:created="2026-06-22T07:57:45Z" ns1:href="http://gtr.ukri.org/gtr/api/projects/C4829E36-F412-4752-A270-35CD326006B7" ns1:id="C4829E36-F412-4752-A270-35CD326006B7"><ns1:links><ns1:link ns1:href="http://gtr.ukri.org/gtr/api/persons/AD5754C0-EC57-4288-A087-F8DB476D5843" ns1:rel="PM_PER"/><ns1:link ns1:href="http://gtr.ukri.org/gtr/api/organisations/FF07B30D-3245-48E3-AE16-A1612BDD8D43" ns1:rel="LEAD_ORG"/><ns1:link ns1:href="http://gtr.ukri.org/gtr/api/organisations/FF07B30D-3245-48E3-AE16-A1612BDD8D43" ns1:rel="PARTICIPANT_ORG"/><ns1:link ns1:end="2024-11-30T00:00:00Z" ns1:href="http://gtr.ukri.org/gtr/api/funds/4A063BBF-A57C-4E74-AD24-CA27491E0AD0" ns1:rel="FUND" ns1:start="2023-12-01T00:00:00Z"/></ns1:links><ns2:identifiers><ns2:identifier ns2:type="RCUK">10095171</ns2:identifier></ns2:identifiers><ns2:title>shaken, and stirred</ns2:title><ns2:status>Closed</ns2:status><ns2:grantCategory>Investment Accelerator</ns2:grantCategory><ns2:leadFunder>Innovate UK</ns2:leadFunder><ns2:abstractText>&amp;quot;Drinking to excess can destroy families, with the NHS too often left to pick up the pieces. Alcohol is one of the biggest causes of ill health and early death, and the right support can save lives.&amp;quot; (Simon Stevens, 2021).

Alcohol dependency is on the rise, with 24% of adults in the UK regularly drinking over the Chief Medical Officer's low-risk guidelines. Alcohol-related admissions to hospitals have grown by 17% over the past decade and alcohol-related harm is estimated to cost the NHS &amp;pound;3.5 billion every year.

Recently, more people have been seeking support as 68% of people starting alcohol treatment in 2019/20 were self-referred. However, out of the 602,391 dependent drinkers in the UK, only 18% are receiving treatment. Multiple factors contribute to this discouragingly low treatment rate, such as the constrained availability of treatment resources, protracted waiting periods for access, and the considerable time and resource commitment required from individuals on their paths to recovery.

Exposure Therapy (ET) is recognised as one of the most impactful therapeutic methods to address alcohol dependency in terms of abstinence and successful recovery rates, and is usually used by the NHS in conjunction with other medical interventions. Yet the clinical format suffers from the same aforementioned shortcomings.

Unlike other psychosocial therapeutic interventions and owing to technological constraints, ET has so far proven challenging to effectively transition into digital formats. These difficulties stem from the absence of real-time, user-specific/dialogue-driven personalisation capability.

Hence, our ground-breaking innovation harnesses state-of-the-art generative AI models to grant users an unparalleled level of hyper-personalisation through a digital ET platform, thereby ensuring unmatched treatment accessibility, efficacy, and engagement.</ns2:abstractText></ns2:project>