MindfulAgents: Personalizing Mindfulness Meditation via an Expert-Aligned Multi-Agent System

Mengyuan (Millie) Wu¹, Zhihan Jiang^1*, Yuang Fan^1*, Richard Feng¹, Sahiti Dharmavaram¹, Matthew Polowitz², Shawn Fallon², Bashima Islam³, Lizbeth Benson⁴, Irene Tung⁵, David J. Creswell⁶, Xuhai "Orson" Xu¹

* contributed equally as second authors.

¹ Columbia University; ² Equa Health; ³ Worcester Polytechnic Institute; ⁴ University of Michigan; ⁵ California State University Dominguez Hills; ⁶ Carnegie Mellon University.

Abstract

Mindfulness meditation is a widely accessible and evidence-based method for supporting mental health. Despite the proliferation of mindfulness meditation apps, sustaining user engagement remains a persistent challenge. Personalizing the meditation experience is a promising strategy to improve engagement, but it often requires costly and unscalable manual effort.

We present MindfulAgents, a multi-agent system powered by large language models that (1) generates guided meditation scripts based on an expert-established mindfulness framework, (2) encourages users' reflection on emotional states and mindfulness skills, and (3) enables real-time personalization of the mindfulness meditation experience for each user.

In a formative lab study (N=13), MindfulAgents significantly improved in-session engagement (p = 0.011) and self-awareness (p = 0.014), and reduced momentary stress (p = 0.020). Furthermore, a four-week deployment study (N=62) demonstrated a notable increase in long-term engagement (p = 0.002) and level of mindfulness (p = 0.023). Participants reported that MindfulAgents offered more relevant meditation sessions personalized to individual needs in various contexts, supporting sustained practice.

Our findings highlight the potential of LLM-driven personalization for enhancing user engagement in digital mindfulness meditation interventions.

Key Figure

Figure 1: MindfulAgents system overview

MindfulAgents Figure 1 showing Expert-Alignment, Reflection, and Personalization agents

BibTeX

@article{wu2026mindfulagents,
  title={MindfulAgents: Personalizing Mindfulness Meditation via an Expert-Aligned Multi-Agent System},
  author={Wu, Mengyuan (Millie) and Jiang, Zhihan and Fan, Yuang and Feng, Richard and Dharmavaram, Sahiti and Polowitz, Mathew and Fallon, Shawn and Islam, Bashima and Benson, Lizbeth and Tung, Irene and Creswell, David and Xu, Xuhai (Orson)},
  journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.06926},
  year={2026}
}

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