How Livestrong partnered with Whitelabel to deliver 24/7 cancer support: an AI agent that answers questions with clinical safety, cites every answer to trusted sources, and escalates crisis language immediately.
Impact at a glance
Support around the clock
A diagnosis lands at half past five on a Friday, after the clinic has closed and before the weekend, and the first question comes at two in the morning. For decades the answer at Livestrong has been a person: free, expert support for people with cancer and the people who love them, grounded in evidence and in long experience of the cancer community. The team is excellent. It is also not awake at two in the morning, and the number of people reaching out has grown every year.
We think the problem Livestrong brought us is the hardest version of the AI question, because the cost of a wrong answer is not a lost sale. A chatbot that invents a treatment detail or misses the language of someone in danger is not unhelpful; it is dangerous. What Livestrong needed was a way to extend its reach into the hours and the volume the human team could not cover, without lowering the standard of care and safety that is the reason people come to Livestrong at all. That constraint shaped everything we built.
An agent grounded in evidence
Livestrong and Whitelabel built an agent that answers questions about cancer types, treatments, side effects and survivorship, at any hour, and cites every answer to Livestrong's curated knowledge base and to trusted medical sources. Each response carries the source it drew from, so the person reading it can check, and so the answer is Livestrong's rather than the model's.
Grounded means it does not improvise. When a question falls outside what it can answer from verified content, it says so and routes the person to Livestrong's human team, because in this setting an admitted gap is safer than a confident guess. Crisis Escalation runs on every message, watching for more than 25 categories of crisis language, from self-harm and abuse to medical emergencies and severe depression, and reading context rather than matching keywords, so it escalates to staff and the right hotline without firing on everyday talk about hard subjects. All of it runs on SOC 2 and HIPAA-compliant infrastructure, with the encryption and access controls that health data requires.
Thousands supported, safely
Since launch the agent has supported more than 8,300 people, answering questions about cancer at every hour and in every time zone. One conversation in ten resolves in a single chat: the person gets what she needed, feels supported and moves on without waiting for a callback or working through a phone tree. When a question needs a human, the agent captures the context and routes it to the right specialist, so nobody has to explain themselves twice.
It treats routine and urgent questions with the same care, always citing the source and always watching for the signal that a person needs to step in. Livestrong's reach now extends past what its team could cover alone, and it has done so without lowering the quality or the safety that someone expects when they turn to Livestrong in a vulnerable moment. The two in the morning question gets an answer.
What other nonprofits can learn
Livestrong is the template for AI in a high-stakes, high-trust domain, and the principles travel. Ground every answer in verified content and cite it. Watch for crisis language with a system that reads context rather than keywords. And be explicit when the AI does not know, rather than letting it improvise. Those three are design decisions made before the first line of code, not features added after.
For a nonprofit in healthcare, mental health, social services or any field where bad advice does real harm, AI agents can extend reach, absorb the routine questions and give the human team back the conversations that need judgment and empathy, on the condition that safety and grounding are the foundation. Livestrong also shows why crisis detection belongs in every one of these builds: people in crisis often reach out to an organisation they trust before they call a hotline, and an agent that recognises that moment and escalates it is a safety net that was not there before. The Crisis Escalation system Livestrong runs is part of Whitelabel's platform, built to fit the escalation protocols a team already has.
“Whitelabel has been a game-changer for how we connect with our audience. It's helping us make cancer support more accessible, more actionable, and more personal than ever before.”
Frequently asked questions
How does the AI agent stay clinically safe?
The agent is grounded in Livestrong's curated knowledge base and trusted medical sources. It never invents answers; if a question falls outside its verified content, it says so and routes to the human team. Every response cites its source, and the system runs on HIPAA-compliant infrastructure with encryption and access controls.
What happens if someone in crisis reaches out?
The agent monitors every conversation for 25+ categories of crisis language using Whitelabel's Crisis Escalation system. When crisis language is detected, the conversation is immediately escalated to Livestrong's human staff and appropriate hotlines. The system understands context and nuance, not just keywords, so it catches what matters without over-triggering.
Does the AI replace Livestrong's human support team?
No. The AI extends Livestrong's reach to 24/7 and handles routine questions, freeing the human team to focus on complex cases that require judgment and empathy. When the AI can't answer a question or detects that human support is needed, it routes the conversation to the appropriate specialist with full context.
Can other nonprofits build something similar for their mission?
Yes. The Livestrong model (grounded answers, crisis detection, and 24/7 availability) is repeatable for any nonprofit working in high-stakes, high-trust domains. Whitelabel partners with organizations to design and build AI agents with the same safety and grounding principles. Start with a conversation to explore what's possible for your mission.