Co-designed with lived experience
People with lived experience and care providers shape JARA through co-design. Dignity, choice, and equitable access guide the work, with respect for harm reduction and abstinence-oriented recovery goals.
JARA · Research-led development
JARA is an AI conversational support and service-navigation platform in development for adults with substance-use concerns. It helps people reflect, access expert-curated information, and find support aligned with their goals and readiness for change—from harm reduction to treatment, recovery, and abstinence, including 12-step and other peer supports, alongside mental health and primary care.
People with lived experience and care providers shape JARA through co-design. Dignity, choice, and equitable access guide the work, with respect for harm reduction and abstinence-oriented recovery goals.
MCRC Health develops and owns JARA, with academic research led by the University of Alberta and contributions from clinical and engineering collaborators. Staged studies guide refinement and validation.
Structured safeguards, privacy, human care pathways, and efficient computing guide development. JARA does not diagnose, treat, or replace human care.
Phase 2A (mid-2027–mid-2028) informs Phase 2B (late 2027–late 2028), with overlapping implementation periods. Future dates are targets and depend on funding, approvals, partner readiness, and study findings.
JARA is being developed and evaluated through University of Alberta–led research studies and is not yet available to the public. The Phase 1A study has research ethics approval (Pro00157614), and its protocol is registered on OSF.
The overview above gives you the essentials. Open any section for the full picture.
Reflection, information, service navigation, and continuity of support.
What is JARA?
JARA is an AI conversational support and service-navigation platform in development for adults with substance-use concerns. It helps people explore care and support across the continuum—including harm reduction, treatment, recovery, abstinence-oriented approaches, 12-step and other peer supports, psychiatry, and primary care—based on their goals and readiness to change.
JARA aims to reduce barriers to evidence-based care, promote equitable access, and support continuity between care contacts and after discharge. It also supports self-reflection and navigation of concurrent mental health and psychosocial challenges.
Its coaching-style approach draws on motivational interviewing, evidence-informed reasoning, and plain-language education. JARA does not diagnose or treat conditions or replace human care.
Structured reflection on substance use, mental health, readiness, and support needs.
Traceable, plain-language information grounded in expert-curated, best available research evidence.
Connections to appropriate local treatment, harm-reduction, recovery, and community resources.
Tools intended to support engagement before, during, and after formal services.
Conversation grounded in curated evidence, with structured safeguards and privacy priorities.
How JARA works
JARA combines conversational AI with structured workflows, an expert-curated evidence library, and defined safety boundaries. These components are being refined and evaluated through the research program.
Generative AI and natural-language processing help interpret everyday language and phrase responses. The architecture separates conversation from fixed software rules governing screening scores, consent, permissions, and high-risk workflows. Model outputs cannot independently authorize prohibited actions.
The evidence library is curated by JARA’s research lead, drawing on mental health and addiction expertise, clinical guidelines, and research evidence. Advisory committee and clinical expert review is planned to strengthen source selection, relevance, and safety.
Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) retrieves relevant material from the curated library to inform responses. Versioned sources, activity records, and audit trails are part of the development plan so reviewers can examine the information and actions behind a response.
Defined safety pathways are being developed and tested to provide crisis-specific messaging and direct people toward appropriate human or emergency support. Any staff notification or follow-up must follow an approved site workflow. JARA is not continuously monitored and does not independently manage emergencies.
Data minimization, informed consent, controlled access, and separation of research and product-development data guide the work. Participation in a study does not automatically authorize model training.
Privacy and security requirements are being developed for JARA’s intended settings and jurisdictions, including applicable Alberta Health Information Act (HIA) and U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) obligations. Storage, access, and processing arrangements will be confirmed through institutional, privacy, and site review before each deployment.
We evaluate model size, computing requirements, response speed, and cost, aiming to use the least resource-intensive approach that meets quality and safety requirements. Targeted models, structured rules, and retrieval may reduce unnecessary computation. Environmental impacts remain a consideration rather than a claimed, measured benefit.
This section describes JARA’s design approach and ongoing development. It is not a claim of completed safety validation or certified privacy compliance. Read the website privacy notice.
Completed work, active co-design studies, planned pilots, and version milestones.
Research progress
Last updated: October 4, 2026
Each stage answers a different question. Later phases depend on research findings, safety, funding, partner readiness, and approvals.
Scoping review, initial team building, theory selection, and early prototype development. Evidence updates and governance continue throughout the program.
Surveys, interviews, co-design activities, and facilitated prototype walkthroughs with people with lived and living experience, service providers, and program leaders. This phase examines needs, usability, acceptability, trust, and fit within services.
Initial pilot site: Our House Addiction Recovery Centre. Analysis and integration of findings are ongoing.
Data collection is nearly complete on Unit 12A at Alberta Hospital Edmonton and underway with Young Adult Services.
A Calgary Rapid Access Addiction Medicine clinic has site approval, with collection expected to begin in October 2026. Boyle Street Community Services is a planned expansion site, subject to final arrangements and readiness.
Planned addiction-recovery expansion at Catalyst Health in Johnson City, Tennessee, through the ETSU collaboration, subject to site readiness and applicable approvals.
Controlled evaluation of accuracy, evidence retrieval, conversation flow, risk recognition, and safety responses, including challenging and adversarial scenarios.
A proposed 12-month human-supported outreach and transitions pilot at Our House Addiction Recovery Centre. Up to 100 eligible residents and recently discharged alumni may participate voluntarily, subject to capacity, funding, and approvals.
A dedicated outreach and transition-support coordinator would provide digital-skills and responsible-AI orientation, supported onboarding, navigation, and follow-up. The coordinator and counsellors remain the primary human contacts; JARA is not continuously monitored.
The evaluation will examine uptake, engagement, usability, workflow fit, safety, continuity, service connections, and staff workload. Recovery and health outcomes may be explored where the study design supports them; this feasibility trial will not by itself establish clinical effectiveness.
Phase 2A findings will inform Phase 2B, a replication study planned with the participating Phase 1A settings: Calgary Rapid Access Addiction Medicine (RAAM), Young Adult Services (YAS), Alberta Hospital Edmonton (AHE), Catalyst Health in Tennessee, and Boyle Street Community Services. The study will examine whether engagement, safety, workflow fit, service navigation, and participant experience transfer across populations and service models.
The replication protocol will carry forward lessons from Our House while specifying local adaptations, common measures, and site-specific workflows. Participation and timelines remain subject to partner readiness, agreements, and applicable approvals.
A future pragmatic cluster randomized trial will evaluate a more stabilized, version-documented JARA platform against usual care or an appropriate comparator. It will examine effectiveness, implementation, safety, and costs, while informing further refinement. The trial design and start date depend on the preceding evidence and readiness checks.
Phase 1A does not establish clinical effectiveness. Planned evaluations are not completed results, and the timeline is conditional.
Development alongside research
Target development period: January 2027–June 2028.
The next 18 months are planned as an active period of platform development, safety testing, supervised implementation, and refinement—not a single finished-product launch.
Improve architecture, conversation flow, evidence retrieval, resource navigation, provider tools, privacy controls, reliability, and documentation. Evaluate candidate models and pursue targeted adaptation or fine-tuning where testing demonstrates a benefit.
Develop and evaluate a constrained context-to-action decision layer: identifying when JARA should clarify, provide approved information, retrieve a resource, offer a structured activity, or seek human review. Fixed software rules retain authority over consent, screening scores, permissions, and critical safety requirements.
This component will be evaluated offline against simpler approaches before any approved participant-facing use. The proposed work assesses technical reliability and readiness; it does not establish clinical effectiveness.
Participant and staff feedback will guide improvements. Each formal study will document the platform version it evaluates, and material changes will require testing and applicable approvals. The Our House pilot may use the tested configuration available at launch without waiting for the new AMII decision component.
Version 1.0 · Phase 1A.1: Initial Our House co-design feedback informed priorities for the first prototype.
Version 1.5 · Phase 1A.2: Young adult psychiatry feedback informs the next iteration.
Version 2.0 · Phase 1A.3 target: Further refinement through outpatient addiction-treatment and harm-reduction co-design.
Version 3.0 · Phase 2 target, mid-2027: A tested release for supervised implementation, subject to safety validation and deployment readiness.
These versions describe the underlying architecture, conversation flow, functions, and safety controls. Interfaces and user experience may be tailored to each site’s needs while shared core components remain documented and testable. A higher version number does not itself demonstrate safety or clinical effectiveness.
The AICE Validate, AMII HIL, and Our House funding applications support distinct proposed activities. Funding awards are not being claimed here. Timelines depend on funding, safety findings, ethics and privacy requirements, and site readiness.
Preliminary review findings, registered protocols, ethics, and our evaluation standards.
Research and evidence
Preliminary findings · Manuscript under review at a peer-reviewed journal. Our scoping review mapped non-therapeutic AI conversational tools for substance-use screening, risk assessment, information, and service navigation. Searches across six databases and citation tracing identified 13 eligible studies published between 2011 and 2025. Ten focused on alcohol, and most evaluated usability, acceptability, feasibility, or engagement rather than clinical effectiveness.
No study reported formal co-design with people with lived and living experience of substance use. Only one described explicit safeguards against harmful or inaccurate outputs, and just two reported on adverse events or harms. No evaluated agent specifically addressed stimulant or polysubstance use, and evidence of clinical effectiveness remained insufficient.
These preliminary findings inform JARA’s emphasis on lived-experience co-design, explicit safety evaluation and adverse-event reporting, broader substance-use needs, equitable access, and real-world implementation. Findings may be refined during peer review; the review does not establish JARA’s safety or effectiveness.
View scoping-review protocol registration ↗The University of Alberta study integrates qualitative interviews and co-design observations with descriptive survey findings. It is designed to identify stakeholder needs and guide prototype refinement before independent real-world use.
Ethics approval: University of Alberta Health Research Ethics Board, Pro00157614.
View Phase 1A study protocol registration ↗Evaluation and transparency
Progress is guided by research findings and readiness—not launch dates alone.
JARA’s evaluation plan follows the World Health Organization’s staged digital-health evaluation guidance, progressing from formative co-design and technical validation to implementation, replication, and comparative effectiveness research.
WHO: Monitoring and evaluating digital health interventions ↗
Major study protocols are, or will be, prospectively registered before the relevant study begins. Findings will be reported with methods, limitations, and documentation of the JARA version evaluated.
We plan to make a de-identified minimum dataset and supporting documentation available to support transparency and reproducibility, subject to participant consent, research ethics approval, data agreements, and assessment of re-identification risk. Where public release is inappropriate, access may be controlled or reproducibility supported through aggregate or synthetic data.
Co-design, clinical and technical review, documented safety testing, privacy readiness, and site approval inform progression decisions. Unresolved concerns can delay, narrow, or pause deployment. Improvements will continue through the planned development period, with controlled changes and a documented release selected for each formal study.
The settings informing development and implementation planning.
Research sites and collaborators
Clinical, recovery, and community settings help us understand how JARA could fit into existing services. Each site’s status reflects its current research contribution.
Residential addiction-recovery setting in Edmonton. Initial prototype evaluation included residents, service providers, and administrators. Our House is also the proposed Phase 2A feasibility and implementation trial site, subject to funding and readiness requirements.
Young adult inpatient psychiatry setting. Data collection is nearing completion.
Young adult psychiatry setting contributing stakeholder perspectives and prototype evaluation. Data collection is underway.
Outpatient addiction-treatment setting. Data collection is expected to begin in October 2026, subject to operational readiness.
Planned community and harm-reduction research collaboration. Participation remains subject to final arrangements and site readiness.
Planned addiction-recovery research expansion in Johnson City, Tennessee, through the ETSU collaboration led by Angela Hagaman. Participation remains subject to site readiness and applicable approvals.
Participation relates to the research activities described and does not imply endorsement or commercial adoption of JARA.
Research leadership, clinical expertise, engineering, trainees, and external advisors.
People behind JARA
MCRC Health develops and owns JARA. The University of Alberta leads the Phase 1A study, with academic, clinical, and international collaborators.
Tyler Marshall and Alexandra Craig are MCRC Health’s co-owners. All other people listed below are engineering, academic, clinical, or advisory collaborators and hold no ownership or equity stake in MCRC Health. Their roles are distinct from company ownership; institutional affiliations do not imply endorsement.
Founder, research lead, and product owner, MCRC Health; Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Alberta. A mental health and addiction researcher specializing in health services research, program evaluation, and mixed-methods evaluation. His postdoctoral work spans virtual overdose response services and AI interventions for mental health. Coordinates JARA’s research program and leads product development, evidence curation, and person-centred design through MCRC Health.
University profile ↗Co-owner of MCRC Health. Contributes ownership-level governance and clinical and health-system perspectives; does not hold a day-to-day operational role in JARA.
The program brings together research, clinical, engineering, business, and lived-experience perspectives. Research trainees and coordinators contribute across Phase 1A data collection and analysis, with responsibilities tailored to their training and study roles. Teaching and mentorship are central to its work: trainees contribute to study design, coordination, analysis, and writing, with opportunities to co-author or lead manuscripts under supervision. Team members have progressed into medical and graduate school, and trainees regularly contribute as manuscript co-authors or take on supervised leadership roles.
Platform engineering is delivered through GET AI LABS, JARA’s technical development partner, alongside supervised development contributors.
Lead AI engineer and developer, GET AI LABS—JARA’s technical development partner. Brings experience in natural language processing, conversational AI, model optimization, and efficient AI architectures. Leads JARA’s architecture, engineering, integration, testing, deployment, and technical documentation.
Professional profile ↗AI software developer contractor. Contributes to JARA’s software and AI development under the supervision of Vatsal Thakkar and Tyler Marshall.
Principal investigator for JARA’s academic research and relevant grant applications, and scientific governance lead; Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the University of Alberta. Scientific Director of the APEC Digital Hub for Mental Health and Board Chair of Mental Health Research Canada and Our House Addiction Recovery Centre. Oversees JARA’s scientific methods, research ethics, data integrity, and academic reporting independently of MCRC Health’s corporate decisions.
University profile ↗U.S. collaboration lead and principal investigator, East Tennessee State University (ETSU). Contributes addiction-recovery research, community-engaged evaluation, and adaptation to Tennessee service settings.
Addiction medicine, internal medicine, and disaster medicine specialist; Associate Professor at the University of Alberta, with academic appointments at both the University of Alberta and University of Calgary. His work spans overdose prevention, harm reduction, digital health, and improving access to care for underserved populations.
University profile ↗Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Alberta, with expertise in young adult mental health, mood disorders, early psychosis, and neuromodulation. He has led innovative clinical programs, including ACCESS Open Minds for young adults in Alberta, and brings extensive experience in clinical research, teaching, and trainee mentorship.
University profile ↗Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Clinician Investigator at the University of Toronto, and Director of the Interventional Psychiatry Program at St. Michael’s Hospital. His clinical and research work spans emerging psychiatric treatments, neurostimulation, and digital therapeutics, bringing a clinical translation perspective to JARA’s medical AI development and evaluation.
University profile ↗Doctoral student at the University of Alberta and lead research coordinator. Coordinates multi-site research and mixed-methods analysis. Co-leads the Phase 1A.1 Our House pilot analysis and manuscript with Alyson (Ally) Bodner; together they presented preliminary findings at the Canadian Academy of Addiction Psychiatry Conference on September 11–12, 2026.
Doctoral student at the University of Alberta and Registered Clinical Counsellor whose clinical focus is substance use and trauma. Brings a lived-experience perspective to addiction and recovery, and contributes to study coordination and stakeholder-informed development and evaluation.
Doctoral student at the University of Alberta. Leads research on administrator perspectives on implementation and economic value, and the Phase 1A.2 young adult psychiatry manuscript. Contributes to study coordination and trainee training.
Medical student and study coordinator. Co-leads the Phase 1A.1 Our House pilot analysis and manuscript with Yuying Lei. Together they presented preliminary findings at the Canadian Academy of Addiction Psychiatry Conference on September 11–12, 2026.
Medical student and study coordinator. Contributes to stakeholder research and the multidisciplinary evaluation program.
Undergraduate trainees contribute to the research program through supervised opportunities in evidence synthesis, study coordination, stakeholder research, and manuscript preparation. Their involvement builds practical research skills and supports progression toward graduate and professional training.
Undergraduate research assistant and co-author on JARA’s Phase 0 scoping-review manuscript. Contributes to Phase 1A data collection and analysis, building on the evidence synthesis that informs JARA’s research and development priorities.
Undergraduate research assistant and co-author on JARA’s Phase 0 scoping-review manuscript. Contributes to Phase 1A data collection and analysis, building on the evidence synthesis that informs JARA’s research and development priorities.
Undergraduate research assistant contributing to Phase 1A data collection and analysis under research-team supervision.
Undergraduate research assistant leading the Phase 1B pilot study under research-team supervision. Also contributes to Phase 1A data collection and analysis.
Lead business, operations, and commercialization advisor. Advises on financial planning, governance, business models, partnerships, procurement, and scale-up readiness.
U.S. mental health policy advisor and President and CEO of the Behavioral Health Foundation, a Tennessee nonprofit policy center. Brings experience in mental health and addiction policy, reducing barriers to care, and translating research into systems change.
Behavioral Health Foundation ↗Clinical AI, trauma-informed practice, and research advisor, with youth counselling and digital-health expertise. Contributes to psychological safety, conversational design, outcomes measurement, and implementation.
Digital behavioural health, commercialization, and scale-up advisor; founder and scientific architect of Evolution Health. Brings more than 25 years of experience in digital health and behavioural science, with research on engagement and the barriers to delivering evidence-based support at scale. Advises JARA on engagement, evaluation, implementation, and sustainable delivery.
Evolution Health bio ↗Commercialization advisor working in venture capital in Calgary and a former graduate research assistant on the project. Continues to contribute to Phase 1A data collection and analysis, alongside customer discovery, market analysis, positioning, and adoption research.
External advisors provide guidance on development and evaluation. Study conduct, analysis, and publication decisions remain with the research team. Affiliations identify contributors’ institutions and do not imply institutional endorsement of JARA.
People with lived and living experience, service providers, and program leaders help shape JARA through study interviews, surveys, and prototype co-design. Research participants are not named here.
Ownership, employment disclosure, research oversight, and funding application status.
Transparency
JARA is developed and owned by MCRC Health (Marshall Clinical Research Consulting Inc.). Tyler Marshall is the company’s founder, director, and co-owner and has a financial interest in JARA’s commercialization. Alexandra Craig is also a co-owner. These ownership interests are distinct from the academic research and external advisory roles described above.
Tyler Marshall is employed by the Government of Alberta, Ministry of Mental Health and Addiction. JARA development and research are conducted independently of, and outside, this employment. No Government of Alberta funding, data, resources, or policy direction have been used in the development or conduct of this work. The Government of Alberta does not endorse JARA.
GET AI LABS is JARA’s contracted technical development partner. All collaborators listed apart from Tyler Marshall and Alexandra Craig hold no ownership or equity stake in MCRC Health. Study-specific competing-interest declarations are provided in the relevant protocols and publications.
University of Alberta research activities are subject to institutional oversight, research ethics approval, and participant consent. Commercial development, service delivery, and academic evaluation responsibilities are distinct.
Applications have been submitted to Alberta Innovates’ AICE Validate program and the AMII Health Innovation Lab to support proposed development and validation. Our House has submitted a Mental Health Foundation application for the proposed supported-transitions pilot. These applications are not confirmed funding awards. Confirmed awards and their supported activities will be acknowledged here when available.
Availability, human care, and what signing up means.
Frequently asked questions
No. JARA is being designed to complement, not replace, professional care. It is not a diagnostic or emergency service.
JARA is not yet generally available to the public. Access may occur through approved studies and pilots. Its dedicated website, talktojara.com, is coming soon.
JARA is being developed for a defined health-support use case with structured assessment, curated evidence, service-navigation data, co-design, and domain-specific safety evaluation.
No. Signing up means you would like project updates. Research participation and access to JARA require separate eligibility, consent, and onboarding processes.
JARA · Partner with us
We welcome conversations with addiction, mental health, recovery, harm reduction, and community organizations interested in helping shape and evaluate JARA in real-world settings.
Potential pilots could explore conversational support, service navigation, and continuity of support between care contacts or after discharge. The approach would be tailored to your setting and the goals of the people you serve.
JARA remains in development. Pilot timing and scope will depend on product readiness, funding, applicable approvals, and partner capacity.
We would work together to identify a clear use case, understand local workflows, and agree on implementation requirements and evaluation measures.
Depending on scope, a paid partnership could include site-specific configuration and resource navigation, staff orientation, technical support, and implementation evaluation. Pricing and responsibilities would be discussed individually.
Commercial agreements with MCRC Health would be clearly distinguished from participation in University of Alberta–led research. Research participation would follow the applicable study protocol, ethics approval, and consent process.
An initial conversation does not commit your organization to a pilot.
Stay connected
Receive occasional research, development, and pilot updates from MCRC Health.
talktojara.com
Dedicated JARA website coming soon.