Artificial Intelligence is racing to think faster than humans. Every week brings a new model, a new benchmark, another leap in processing power. But as the world focuses on thinking machines, we’re missing something far more profound.
The real breakthrough will not come from AI that outthinks us. It will come from AI that understands us – AI that can read and respond to the very thing driving most of our decisions: emotion.
Why Emotion is the Blind Spot of Technology
For decades, technology has been built around logic and data. It has been excellent at optimising, automating, and scaling, but it has ignored the messy, human, emotional layer that sits beneath everything we do.
Here is the uncomfortable truth:
- Emotion drives around 80% of human decision-making.
- We have no standard way of measuring it.
- Systems built without it are fundamentally incomplete.
We have standardised time, enabling global trade. We have standardised language, allowing complex thought and communication. Yet emotion; the most influential variable in human behaviour – remains unquantified.
That is the blind spot we set out to address at inTruth.
The Science Behind Emotional Biometrics
When I founded inTruth, the question was simple but radical:
What if we could make emotion visible, measurable, and actionable – without compromising the human experience?
To do this, we turned to biotechnology. We experimented with a range of biosignals: EEG, ECG, skin conductance, and more. Eventually, we landed on PPG sensors – the same optical technology used in consumer wearables like Garmin and Oura – which capture beat-to-beat interval data with remarkable accessibility.
The raw data itself is not enough. This is where our Emotion Language Model (ELM) comes in. We trained our model in clinical environments, mapping PPG data against high-fidelity inputs like EEG, and referencing existing stimulus databases to ground it in truth.
The result is a model that can translate raw physiology into distinct emotional states, millisecond by millisecond, creating a visual “language” of emotion.
It’s the first step towards standardising something that has, until now, existed only in the realm of subjectivity.
The Future of Health is Emotion
Imagine going to the doctor and being asked, “How do you think your blood pressure is today?” You guess. They prescribe medication based on that guess. Sounds absurd, yet this is how emotional and mental health is currently treated.
There are no objective measurements, only subjective reporting. And the results are devastating—billions spent, yet outcomes worsen.
By making emotion measurable, we can:
- Detect emotional dysregulation before it manifests as crisis.
- Equip individuals with tools to understand and master their emotional state.
- Provide healthcare systems with actionable data for preventative care.
One of our major goals at inTruth is to have an Emotion Score clinically validated as a biomarker, sitting alongside blood pressure and glucose in routine health assessments. Emotional health is not a “nice to have”. It is fundamental.
The Ethical Crossroads: Emotion as Data
There is a reason this space makes people uneasy. The idea of technology reading your emotions feels dystopian, Orwellian even. People ask me, “Do I really want anyone knowing how I feel all day long?”
They are right to be sceptical. In the wrong hands, this data could be used to manipulate pricing, influence elections, or exploit vulnerabilities at scale. Companies already try to infer emotion from language or behaviour, often crudely, and the potential for misuse with high-resolution data is enormous.
That is why ethics cannot be an afterthought.
At inTruth we:
- Build sovereign data infrastructure, keeping raw emotional data on the device and away from centralised servers.
- Use federated learning, allowing our model to improve while preserving user privacy.
- Advocate for legislation that protects emotional data from being sold or used for manipulation.
- Open-source our ethics frameworks so others can adopt responsible practices.
Technology this powerful must be built with integrity at its core.
A Different Kind of Biotech Company
Biotech has traditionally focused on the physical—genetics, organs, molecules. We are stepping into a new territory: the inner world.
Emotion is biological, psychological, and social all at once. Capturing it requires not only science, but sensitivity to its complexity. It also requires a willingness to challenge the status quo.
Where many companies in this space rely on behavioural proxies (language, facial expression), our approach goes deeper, measuring emotion directly at its source. This is not about guessing how you feel. It is about knowing, with the same precision we bring to other areas of medicine.
Beyond Measurement: Towards an Emotionally Intelligent Future
The power of this technology is not just in the measurement, but in what it unlocks.
Once you can see your emotional patterns, you can change them. Imagine:
- A worker in a high-risk environment being alerted to early signs of dysregulation, preventing accidents.
- A person navigating anxiety gaining real-time insights into what triggers and soothes their nervous system.
- A couple seeing their emotional synchrony mapped visually, deepening their empathy and understanding.
Emotionally intelligent technology could transform relationships, workplaces, healthcare, and leadership. It could make societies more resilient.
The Vision: AI That Feels
AI has so far been built to think. The next era belongs to AI that feels – not in the sense of possessing emotions, but in its ability to understand and respond to ours.
We are not building this to create dependency. We are building it to return agency to individuals, to make emotional health visible and actionable at scale.
This is not science fiction. The prototypes are already here, and the potential is enormous. But with that potential comes responsibility. The choices we make now – about how this data is collected, stored, and used – will shape the ethics of emotion technology for generations.
Final Thoughts: Building What Matters
We live in a world where many AI companies are chasing trends, building tools to maximise clicks, and extracting as much value as possible from users. That is not the path we are on.
We are building technology that is not only technically groundbreaking but ethically grounded. We are building for a future where technology amplifies human capacity instead of exploiting it.
If this resonated with you:
Join my community of Founders: inStitute (Free)
Listen to The Global Affair: The Global Affair Podcast