SOFI
A Siri for sex — a 24/7 conversational AI built for sexual health charity Brook, designed to answer the questions young people can't always ask out loud.
- Client
- Brook
- Agency
- Engine
- My role
- Creative Technologist
- Year
- 2017
SOFI — the Sexual Oracle For Information — was a conversational AI built for Brook, the UK’s sexual health and wellbeing charity for young people.
The brief was disarmingly tricky: help teenagers get honest answers to questions they’d never ask a parent, teacher, or GP. Our response was a 24/7 assistant that listened without judgement and answered without prejudice — somewhere between a patient friend and a very well-read librarian.
The thinking
Young people don’t lack curiosity about sex. They lack somewhere calm to put the questions. Search engines are blunt instruments, and the first few results are rarely the ones you’d want a fifteen-year-old reading. SOFI was an attempt to sit in that gap — part educator, part translator, part myth-buster — designed to demystify the taboos and quietly dismantle the urban legends.
The tone mattered as much as the technology. Too clinical and it becomes a leaflet. Too matey and it loses trust. We spent a long time on the voice so that the service felt like a well-meaning adult who happened to be available at three in the morning.