Ode - an AI companion to lift your mood through poetry

Presenter: Right, yes, marvellous. Let me introduce you to Ode, a new and free AI companion that lifts your mood through poetry. It asks how you're feeling, and then, on the basis of that, it prescribes a poem that might help you along with your day. It's based on - or rather, one should say, trained on - a series of fabulous books called The Poetry Pharmacy, which were created by this man here. Say hello to William Sieghart.

William Sieghart: Hello there. For years, I've seen how poetry can soothe, restore, even heal. There's a poem for every feeling. You just have to find it.

Presenter: Exactly, exactly that. Now, the way it works is like this. The companion, as we call it, has been trained on William's voice and all the prescriptions in his book. And the companion will then ask a few questions about how you're feeling, and then prescribe a poem that might help. Now, here's the wonderful thing: all the poems are real poems read by real people - nothing to do with AI in either case, either the writing or the reading. They're people who've given readings especially for Ode. People with lovely voices, like Stephen Fry, for example. So there we are. A simple idea. A beautiful idea. Why don't you give it a go? Enjoy.

William Sieghart: I'm the poetry pharmacist. A friend of mine said to me, "You're always sending me poetry to get me out of difficulty." And she said, "I'm organising this literary festival in the west of England. I'm putting you in a tent - bring down every poem you can think of that would help people. I'm going to call you the poetry pharmacist." I'm a singular human being, and there's only so much time I can spend in a day talking to people. Ode means that hundreds, thousands of people can talk to me every day.

Mark Eaves: Poetry is probably the oldest voice technology in the world. Can you put the oldest voice technology in the world - 3,000 years of capturing and saying the unsayable - and put it together with the very latest voice technology?

James Ray: When you express what's on your mind, the system interprets that and matches what you're feeling to a library of poems. The poems are recorded by some of the most wonderful actors and actresses in the world - Stephen Fry and Harriet Walter and so forth. It's not altering anyone's poems or anyone's readings; the poems are all the original poems of all the poets.

William Sieghart: You click on the link and I'll say something like, "I'm William Sieghart, and I'd love to help you find the right poem for the moment you're in."

Voices from Ode (users and poem readings): "I'm finding it hard to switch off at night." "I feel anxious." "I'm looking for adventure." "My soul is awakened. My spirit is soaring, and carried aloft on the winds of the breeze." "Happy the man whose wish and care a few paternal acres bound." "Now that all your worry has proved such an unlucrative business, why not find a better job?" "I felt I'm not lonely anymore." "Like I had wings." "You can really find solace in a poem and feel connection from a poem that was written hundreds of years ago."

Dom Lashley: The challenge with it has always been creating a natural, empathetic voice that you want to talk to, that opens you up to talk to it. Not everyone has someone to lean on when they need it. What this technology does is it just allows us to meet more people where they are, day to day, and give them that experience of connection.

Amelia Richards: Here's a way in which many, many more people than would ever go into a bookshop and buy a poetry book can hear a poem that really touches them. Through the technology, we can make it so a person can feel very seen, very heard, very in the moment.

William Sieghart: I've been blessed with the ability to self-medicate with poetry, and that's what I hope Ode will be able to do for everyone. It's kind of like a safe place in a dangerous world.