An AI-powered support team for chronic back pain
Client
backcare.ai
Year
2026
The problem
619 million people live with back pain. Care comes in short appointments, but the pain doesn't. It's long, non-linear, and 90% of it has no cler structural cause to fix. Specialists can't answer every question in the time they have, so people spend most of their condition alone, searching forums at 2am with no one to validate what they're going through
The gap isn't the care. It's everything between the care.
Our process
Discovery workshop
A one-day workshop to align on who we were building for. We mapped the end-to-end journey of living with back pain and prioritised which pain points to solve first, which shaped the problem definition.
The end result
We turned research with 100 people in pain into a RAG chatbot grounded in 94 peer-reviewed papers, co-designed by four clinicians and backed by the Remarkable Launcher Program. Strategy, brand, motion and code: one studio.
Four AIs, one answer
Cheap AI does the checking. Premium AI only writes the final answer.
- Checks every messageA fast, low-cost AI, powered by Groq
- Works out what you meanMeaning-matching AI, powered by OpenAI
- Searches 94 papersOur research library, powered by Supabase
- Writes the answer, with sourcesThe premium AI, used once, powered by Claude
We built a custom LLM from scratch
one that remembers conversations, helps you to recover through movement, diet and mindfulness, and collates all your data for you to later give to your medical team.
Custom illustrations
In the world of AI, things can start to feel a little clinical when everything is machine made. For that reason, we went old school with a collage aesthetic and hand made these illustrations for each pillar of care - move, eat, cope, and prepare for appointments.
Interaction design
A suite of UI elements that breathe, move and react - in an effort to make the user feel like they aren't alone in the conversation.
Designed across every breakpoint
Our research showed people look for back pain help from bed, on their phones, often late at night. So we designed for that screen first and scaled up from there.
Pricing Plans
We built an AI token usage pricing model that pays for itself: two simple plans, top-ups when they want more, and margin built into every message.
Capabilities
Framing workshop
Customer research
AI & RAG
Clinical usability testing
Brand & illustration
Interaction design
Motion design
Accessibility
SEO & AEO
Pricing strategy
Web development
