Name: Calm in the Chaos
Uploaded: 2025-12-09
Duration: 11 min 45 s

Machine learning may promise efficiency, but most of us are still drowning in back-to-back meetings and digital overload. Who has time to take a mental pause? Calm CEO David Ko offers a rare moment to explore how thoughtful, human-centric approaches to AI can support digital mental-wellness tools. He shares how the leading mental health platform is exploring the integration of intelligent tech to help executives sleep better, think clearer, and lead with more intention, while navigating anxiety and stress along the way. The session closes with an AI-guided meditation to help you do more than just power through.

Calm in the Chaos

Conferences

Everyone, thank you for having me here today. I um, I'm excited to be here at Fortune's Brainstorm AI. Um, over the last 3 years, I've had the privilege of leading comms, uh, really transformation. And that transformation process has gone from us being a consumer, a global consumer app, really focused on sleep and your mental health. To being now focused more on and transforming more into a full end to end mental healthcare company. And this work for me is extremely personal. I had my first panic attack when I was 14 years old. I had sweaty palms, tightness in the chest, uh, shortness of breath, and I didn't really understand quite what was happening at that moment. So for today, and for me today, it's much more than a job, it's a mission. And this mission is to help as many people as humanly possible. To access mental health services on a global basis whenever they need it. Now, uh, I'd love to make this a little bit more interactive. And the way I'd love to make it a little bit more interactive is that we all know that it's really hard for leaders to lead in this new age of AI when we feel that our batteries are depleted. Now, we know that mental health is probably the most approachable that it's ever been. I love that we can have these conversations on a global basis. But here's the thing, why can't we have these conversations at work? It's not like the TV show Severance, where you go to work and your mental health just checks itself at the door. So I wrote a whole book about this and I tried to take a heavy topic and make it a lot more approachable at work. And that was to equate your mental health like a phone battery. It's much easier to say to someone, how's your battery, than it is to say, how's your mental health, right? So, quick show of hands. How many of you today feel that your battery is at 75% or above, just raise your hand. OK, cool. How many of you today feel that your battery is at 50%? Raise your hand. All right. And 25% or below. OK, a couple of you. Thank you for that. Let me talk a little bit about why the, the numbers that you all gave today kind of follow what we've seen. We did a survey of over 250 C-suite executives. And in that survey, when we asked them, how are you doing, it followed most of this room. Most people said that they were doing good. That's actually kind of how I've been when I've talked to my employees in the past in hallway conversations, when I've asked them, how are you doing? And the reality is most of us want to just hear that you're doing good. We just want to hear that you say I'm doing good. If you say I'm not doing so good, you're like, oh wait, I have to go to a meeting. I didn't leave time and space for that, so I'm a lot more intentional today than I was back then. And here's the thing, in our survey, when we asked people how are you really doing, that's when we start to get real responses, and we found that over 48% of those individuals were feeling overwhelmed. We also saw that 25% of them were feeling anxiety or depression. And that only 1 in 4 executives said that their batteries were fully recharged at the moment. So let's talk about the why. And what's happening in this great paradox that we see. How many of you in this room have trouble sleeping, sleeping at night? OK, that's a pretty big audience. What we found was that when we asked our executives, how many of you have trouble sleeping at night, and it's not the quantity of sleep, it's the quality of sleep. So many of them at 41% said, hey, we struggle at night having good quality sleep. A little hack for you all if you can do this. If you can actually not let the phone be the last thing you see at night, that's a great first step, before you go to bed. And a bonus, if you don't let the phone be the first thing you see in the morning, that can help your quality of sleep immensely. Just give it a try. The second thing we found is if you have if you can't sleep at night, the next thing that we started to see is that 34% are feeling drained. And then 40% are unable to be mentally present. So think about this, what's happening. You can't sleep at night, you're feeling drained, and you're not mentally present in the office. That leads to a startling fact, that 1 out of 2 who took our survey actually said that they are thinking of stepping down. These aren't just data points, everyone. This is kind of the new leadership reality that we are living in today. And here's the thing. Most leaders are like in this room. are operating at about 20%. Think about what that means. If you were an athlete today and you wanted to go out and do a sport, would you go out and try to do your best at 20%? If you were a coach, could you really lead at 20% that team? I think for most of us intuitively, we would understand that answer is no. So right now, we are making some of the biggest decisions, whether it's in the office, whether it's around large topics, whether it's around AI, the future of work. At 20%. So if you really think about it, These conversations are so important. And here's what else that's happening today. We're having conversations in AI that are super broad. We're having conversations about how AI can make us more efficient. We're having conversations around AI will it replace humans. We're having conversations like in today about what is the future of AI and work. But from where I sit, At the intersection of technology and mental health, I believe we are asking the wrong question. The question is not whether AI will replace humans. I think the thing that we have to ask ourselves as a leadership group is, how do we support humans so we can lead in the age of AI. And I'll say this a different way as well. How can we support you, so you can lead in the age of AI? And let me show you some stats around this. Our surveys have showed that 79% of the leadership teams believe that the human brain is the original data center. That makes sense. But we've also seen that 13% say they fear that AI will replace human workers, which is lower than the general public. And most leaders feel that AI is actually very complementary. This is where our conversations around mental healthcare and mental support are so important from a foundational level going forward. And this is some of the work that we're doing at Calm and Calm Health. And let me tell you what we're doing. We're seeing when you engage with calm around your mental health that you're 2 times more likely to engage in our mental health services. And outpatient care. We find that over 77% complete a mental health screening. We find that 39% will actually enroll in a clinical program. And 33% of folks say they actually felt better after one session in terms of their overall well-being. And what I'm sharing with you aren't just stats. They're really a new foundation for us moving forward. Companies invest in their mental health really see a 3 times higher, larger engagement. They see less burnout and a higher ROI. They see 4 to 1. 84% of folks believe that mental health directly impacts the bottom line, and most leaders believe it's 71% that healthcare services like mental health will be embedded in their programs going forward. So in a world that's currently being transformed by AI, organizations are realizing that our greatest assets aren't just the technology, it's the people behind them. Now here's some quick ways that I like to recharge because they don't have to be these big grandiose gestures. They can be simple things. You look out the window, you do walk, you do water. The surgeon General once said, just check in on someone, Vivek Murthy, the former surgeon General that is. So you just focus on one small task at a time. And then lastly, it's not just about talking about how to recharge. Let's talk about how you actually do it. I actually have a really short AI guided meditation that was done by ChibzoKrake that I'd love for you to hear. If you can stay seated, open and close your eyes, just stay relaxed, and let's take a quick listen. Hey there, my name's Chibzo Karrike. Let's do a quick breathing exercise to help you reset. Maybe your mind has been going nonstop, weighing decisions, navigating pressure, and holding everything together day by day. Outwardly you might seem calm, but inside the stress has been mounting. So let's take a moment to pause. You can close your eyes or just soften your gaze if that feels better. Try bringing your awareness to your breath as it moves through your body. Breathing in, the body expands. Breathing out, the body softens. Breathing in Breathing out. Now take a moment to notice what it feels like when your mind gets a small moment of space. Reflect on the qualities you want to bring forward. Steadiness. Clarity. Presence. Even in an AI driven world, it's your human capacity. Your judgment Creativity And empathy. That lead the way. OK, go ahead and open your eyes if they were closed. Wishing you a clear mind and steady energy for the rest of your day. I hope you, uh, I hope you all feel recharged. I'd be remiss to tell you we have free calm at the front with QR codes. Enjoy your day, everyone. Thank you very much.