About
Built by a cognitive hypnotherapist who works with women in midlife.
AUCO is founded by Sophie Parker. Working directly with women in midlife as a cognitive hypnotherapist in London, Sophie kept noticing the same thing. There are plenty of apps built for perimenopause and menopause. Almost all of them focus on the physical: tracking cycles, logging symptoms, monitoring sleep. Few come close to the emotional guidance she offers her clients in practice.
Sophie has seen in her own practice what the right therapeutic support can do. She has watched women move through these stages with ease and confidence. She has also seen women who were not as fortunate, who had to make do with what they could find online, from friends and family, or who suffered in silence.
She has more than twenty years in brand communications behind her, having worked on global campaigns including the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, and alongside founders building and scaling brands. She understands what it takes to go from a problem worth solving to something that can actually reach the people who need it.
AUCO is an AI lifecycle companion built to do exactly that. It makes emotional support available to any woman navigating hormonal change. It launches with perimenopause and menopause, with other stages including periods, fertility, postpartum and pregnancy to follow.
Sophie Parker
Brand communications strategist; cognitive hypnotherapist; AUCO founder. London-based.
Brand communications
- · Five years as Global Director, M&C Saatchi Talk (to 2020).
- · Independent fractional communications director and consultant since 2020.
- · Career began at the Department for Culture, Media & Sport.
- · Worked on the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, the Coca-Cola Maroon 5 24-hour Session global activation, and the launch of Vaseline Lip Therapy Crème Brûlée at Selfridges (fastest-selling product in the store's history).
- · Past brands include Pernod Ricard, Johnson & Johnson, HUGO BOSS, Dolce & Gabbana, Google Android, Coca-Cola, Barclays, Unilever (Dove, Vaseline, Simple), Nike Foundation, Samsung, MasterCard, Burger King.
- · PR Freelancer of the Year, YunoJuno Freelancer Awards 2023.
Therapeutic practice
- · Certified Cognitive Hypnotherapist (Quest Institute trained).
- · Master Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming.
- · HypnoBirthing practitioner and coach.
Education
- · BA (Hons) Philosophy and English Literature, University of Reading.
What AUCO is, in one paragraph
AUCO is a wellness companion. It listens, then offers one technique drawn from clinician-authored material across six therapeutic frameworks: Cognitive Hypnotherapy, CBT, ACT, Mindfulness, Positive Psychology, and Mind-Body Movement. Conversations are private and exportable. There is no streak, no return-rate metric, no nudge. When the conversation touches a crisis, AUCO pauses and points to a trained human listener. It is not a clinician.
Why this product, why now
The available choices for women in this life stage were either symptom-tracking apps that asked twenty questions every morning, or telehealth services that shipped clinical decisions before the conversation got past the intake form. There was no quiet, conversational, therapeutic companion drawing on the modalities that actually move emotional and psychological weather in midlife. AUCO is built to fill that gap.
The team
Sophie holds product, voice, and the therapeutic spine. Luke Twomey, a software engineer working in partnership, is shepherding the build using a rapid idea-to-concept methodology validated on prior projects. A small clinical advisor circle is forming pre-launch.
Where AUCO is available
United Kingdom first, with an Australian closed pilot ahead of UK public launch. International expansion follows the trademark grant timeline. AUCO is UK GDPR Article 9 compliant and built with data residency in EU and UK.