Behavioral Health Tech Is Booming, But Are Veteran and Military Communities Benefiting?

In the broader tech world, behavioral health solutions have become one of the fastest-growing subsectors of digital health. Investment flows, market projections, and new products suggest AI-powered behavioral health tools are here to stay. Yet the explosive growth we’re seeing in general populations hasn’t translated into the same momentum for Veterans and military communities, a glaring gap that is both a missed opportunity and a public health concern. 

The Growth of AI in Behavioral Health 

Behavioral health technology has moved quickly from the margins of digital health into one of its fastest-growing areas. AI-enabled tools for mental health, substance use, and emotional support are no longer experimental add-ons; they are becoming core components of how care is designed and delivered. 

Globally, the AI behavioral health market was valued at more than $55 billion in 2024 and is projected to exceed $115 billion by the mid-2030s, driven by demand for scalable care models, workforce augmentation, and more personalized interventions. Investment patterns mirror this growth. In just the past two years, behavioral health startups have raised well over $2 billion, signaling sustained confidence that technology will play a central role in addressing access and capacity gaps across the system. 

Equally noteworthy is where this growth is and is not concentrating. Much of today’s innovation focuses on general-population use cases: AI-assisted therapy platforms trained on large volumes of clinical conversation data, digital companions designed to support anxiety and depression, and tools aimed at helping clinicians manage documentation, triage, and risk detection at scale, including platforms that are beginning to deploy large language models purpose-built for behavioral health contexts. 

These solutions are increasingly sophisticated, blending machine learning with clinical oversight rather than operating as standalone automation. In other words, the field is maturing, moving past novelty toward integration into real care environments. But that maturation has not been evenly distributed. 

Where the Field Still Falls Short: Military & Veteran Populations 

Despite this growth, the translation of AI behavioral health tech into solutions tailored for active service members, Veterans, and their families is remarkably limited. 

Academic reviews focusing on the military population show that compared to civilian research, there has been significantly less work on AI and machine learning in behavioral health applications for U.S. service members.¹ This includes key areas where AI has shown promise in broader contexts, like diagnosis, screening, and prognosis. 

This is not just an academic concern: military and Veteran populations face distinct health and behavioral health risk factors for conditions like depression, Substance Use Disorders (SUDs), or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and often encounter barriers to accessing Evidenced Based Treatment (EBT) and sustained care engagement. Early evaluations of AI-integrated SUD tools hint at potential promise for Veterans, but these are still tightly scoped pilot efforts rather than large, scalable solutions.  

Why This Matters Now 

The broader behavioral health tech boom isn’t a passing trend. It’s a structural shift. From startups raising ever-larger investment rounds to AI-enhanced tools helping clinicians work more efficiently and transparently, the trajectory is clear — technology will be part of the behavioral health care fabric for years to come. 

But if Veterans and military communities are not part of that trajectory, a few consequences follow:

• Innovations will be shaped by civilian priorities, not by the unique clinical and cultural realities of Veterans, their families, and caregivers. 

• Veterans risk seeing second-class digital care options that aren’t rooted in evidence or lived experience. 

• Federal health systems run the risk of adopting tools that work in civilian contexts but aren’t validated for military and Veteran populations leading to potential issues with use and implementation. 

  
  

In a field so deeply rooted in lived experience, lived perspective matters.  

The Case for Veteran-Centered Behavioral Health Tech 

Ignoring a population with higher prevalence of suicide risk is simply strategically unsound for anyone claiming to address behavioral health at scale. At RDS, we believe behavioral health technology has enormous potential, but only if it includes all populations, not just the easiest to reach or the most commercially attractive. 

That means: 

• Designing with experience by leveraging expertise from military and Veteran mental health professionals in product development and evaluation. 

• Embedding clinical context so AI doesn’t replace human judgment but augments it in culturally competent ways. 

• Partnering across sectors so promising innovations find real pathways into federal programs and Veteran support systems. 

  
  

The behavioral health tech boom isn’t someone else’s story. It’s the future of care and must integrate the voices and needs of those who have served. 

1. McConnon, A.D., Nash, A.J., Roberts, J.R., Juni, S.Z., Derenbecker, A., Shanahan, P., & Waters, A.J. (2025). Incorporating AI Into Military Behavioral Health: A Narrative Review. Military Medicine, 190(9–10), e1870–e1881.