Taking the power of music beyond the clinic and into everyday life, beginning with joint research and VAIA, open for pre-order today.

NEW YORK, Monday November 9, 2026 - Today, at IMNF's 2026 Music Has Power® Symposium & Awards at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City, Vibes AI, a NeuroWellness company using voice, sound, and responsible AI, and the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function (IMNF) announce a Mind Care research and product development collaboration focused on cognitive function. Together, they explore what the voice can reveal about a person's cognitive state and how music and sound therapies can support cognitive function. Vibes AI also opens pre-orders for VAIA®, its AI NeuroWellness partner for everyday Mind Care, with 10,000 launch spots available. Vibes AI and IMNF also invite clinical music therapists and certified sound therapists to register to help build Project TEMPLE, which they plan to launch in February 2027.

For IMNF's researchers, music therapists, and clinicians, the collaboration opens new questions to study: how short voice check-ins might help them see the effect of music therapy between sessions, and how different music and sound therapies relate to cognitive function in daily life. Clinicians and creators are invited to help shape that research. Together, they pair IMNF's decades of clinical music therapy practice with Vibes AI's voice and sound technology, with the goal of bringing evidence-based music interventions to people in their daily lives, not only in clinical settings. IMNF also has a direct role in shaping the VAIA platform: its clinical expertise, its community of music therapists, and what both teams learn together inform how VAIA recommends sound and how its library grows.

For more than 30 years, IMNF has shown that music can change how the brain functions, including for people living with Alzheimer's disease, stroke, and Parkinson's disease. Its MUSIC & MEMORY® program alone has trained nearly 6,000 healthcare and community-based organizations worldwide. The challenge has always been reach. Music therapy depends on trained clinicians and in-person sessions, and most people who could benefit never receive it. This collaboration is aimed at that scaling problem. It enables clinical music therapists and certified sound therapists, as Vibe Guides, to extend their reach to people wherever they are.

"Concetta and IMNF have spent decades proving that music changes the brain," says Joanna Peña-Bickley, CEO and Co-Founder of Vibes AI. "Last year, we shared with this community how the sound of our voice could be used to deliver new preventative signals. Most of us care for our skin and our bodies every day, but not our minds. Mind Care changes that. With VAIA, you talk for a moment, understand where you are, and find human-made sound to tune your mind toward where you want to be. Working with IMNF, we want to learn how that everyday practice can serve people wherever they are."

"For three decades, IMNF has shown what music can do for the brain in the clinic," says Dr. Concetta Tomaino, co-founder and Executive Director of IMNF. "This collaboration gives our researchers, music therapists, and the people and families we serve new questions to explore: what a person's voice can tell us about their cognitive function, and how music and sound can support it in everyday life. AI is a tool here. The music stays human, and the clinician stays at the center."

Meet VAIA, an AI Mind Care Partner
The 2024 Lancet Commission found that some of what shapes our brains over a lifetime is in our hands. VAIA is built on that research to make Mind Care a lifestyle worth living: an AI Mind Care partner that uses clinical-grade voice biomarkers to objectively measure cognitive state and helps you discover the right music and sound therapies for the moment you are in.

Here is how it works. Talk about your day for about 30 seconds, and VAIA turns your voice into three plain-language Mind Care scores: Frequency, Readiness and Resilience. AI then matches you with a sound session for where you want to be, from a library composed by human Vibe Guides. Every session is composed, never generated, and you are always free to choose something else. After listening, you check in again to see what moved. Over time, VAIA suggests small, enjoyable habits that fit your day and stage of life, like stacking sound sessions into rituals, talking through your day out loud and learning something new about your brain. Ask VAIA® answers brain health questions from clinical research, making the latest science accessible to everyone. VAIA is a wellness product. It does not diagnose or treat disease. It helps people build habits around the areas research says matter. Everyday check-ins run on MANTRA 1.0, the Vibes AI frontier voice model that gave the project its working name. Clinical-grade readings use Vibes Clinical Cloud 1.0, which analyzes 2,500 voice biomarkers.

The goal is to bring practitioner-made music and sound therapy out of the clinic and into everyday life.

Pre-Order and First Access
VAIA is open for pre-order today at getvibes.ai/vaia, with 10,000 launch spots. Pre-order customers choose VAIA Essential ($8.99 a month) or VAIA Pro ($14.99 a month or $119 a year) and receive a personal code by email to redeem in the VAIA iPhone app on launch day, January 7, 2027. VAIA arrives on iPhone first, with Android to follow.

Supporting IMNF Research: A portion of VAIA subscription proceeds will support the IMNF Research.

Project TEMPLE: In February 2027, Vibes AI and IMNF plan to launch Project TEMPLE (Therapeutic Exchange Marketplace for Professional Licensed Experts), a professional platform for clinical music therapists and certified sound therapists. On TEMPLE, practitioners create a verified profile and submit therapeutic audio for that becomes available to all VAIA users. Practitioners see analytics on how their submissions perform, can monetize their services, and become eligible for featured opportunities in research studies, podcasts and mobile apps. Today's symposium opens registration for practitioners who want to help build TEMPLE at https://getvibes.ai/apply 

About Vibes AI, Inc: Vibes AI, is a neurotechnology company pioneering Mind Care. We believe voice interfaces can restore human focus, physical presence, and cognitive clarity, and we are building them, starting with VAIA. We are on a mission to make NeuroWellness accessible to all.  Learn more at getvibes.ai.

About the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function (IMNF):
The Institute for Music and Neurologic Function (IMNF) advances the science and practice of music as a powerful tool for brain health, neurological function, and human connection. For more than three decades, IMNF has brought together neuroscience, medicine, music therapy, research, and education to understand how music affects the brain and translate that knowledge into practical applications. Building on its clinical roots, IMNF advances research, professional education, clinical music therapy, and innovative programs and tools that bring the benefits of music to people across healthcare and community settings.

Media Contacts

Vibes AI: Carmen Murillo, press@vibesbiowear.ai, 786 974 0250

IMNF: Justin Russo, Director of Programming, jrusso@imnf.org, 914-353-0236

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