baby boomers

January 2026 is just around the corner.  And so will begin the wave of 73 million baby boomers turning 80 over the next 20 years. Maybe they are all in great shape! Not according to a Johns Hopkins researcher: only 25% are ‘robust and active’.  'The rest are a mix of frail and vulnerable, slowed down by health issues.' And many in their 80s and 90s will be aging in place alone – projected by a Harvard study to exceed 10 million.  The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) just put out a request for tech ecosystem recommendations – clear understanding that the future for health tech for older adults will be required – and even (!) interoperable. The pace of making all of this happen clearly needs to accelerate.

Baby boomer aging – it’s a big tech opportunity. Today there are 76 million US baby boomers, those born between 1946 and 1964.  They represent 21 percent of the US population.   73% of all wealth in the United States is concentrated among those over age 55, most of whom are baby boomers.   As the oldest of the baby boomers begin turning 80 in January of 2026, which can generate worry (as in that NY Times post) or be viewed as a market opportunity.   Life expectancy at 65 is on average another 20 years.   Note that 20% of the 65+ today are working.   So what does it all mean?

The University of Michigan polled older adult responders – and the results are in. In a recent survey of more than 1000 adults aged 50+, the University of Michigan poll, fielded inside Michigan and nationwide, demonstrates that Artificial Intelligence technology is useful to older adults – and that they are not intimidated by it.  As with other studies, those with less education had somewhat less trust in AI-enabled information, and those with health disabilities also were somewhat less trusting of the information they found. (Source: July, 2025 University of Michigan AI Poll).

In 2023, twenty-five interviewees agreed that AI was going to matter to older adults. This report was an early entrant connecting AI to their needs. By then, advances in AI had received the full attention of the technology industry, which was undergoing its first major disruption since the arrival of smart speakers and voice in 2014. In fact, some thought it was going to change the interaction with and care of older adults in a dramatic way.  Many predictions have been realized as of today, including the widespread use of conversational AI in the home, use of AI in healthcare – particularly in clinical documentation, hearing assistance technology, 24x7 remote monitoring, chatbots for everything, including senior living. In fact, today many experts believe that AI is the most transformative technology since the introduction of the Internet.

The more things change…Argentum published a new survey of senior living executives last month, querying execs about tech adoption, including thoughts about AI in senior living. The report (also sponsored by A Place for Mom) compared two sets of responses about tech from 2023 and 2024 – enabling a possible comparison. On the upbeat side, as of 2024, 76% of responders are optimistic about the role AI can play in their organizations. That question was probably not asked in 2023, so there was nothing to compare, but a number of them today are apparently experimenting with AI. They say that the uses are for staffing efficiency, care planning and improved resident interaction. Perhaps a number of them read a most 2024 report from this website, The Future of AI in Senior Living and Care and saw possibilities for improved documentation, staff education, and even the potential for predictive analytics.

Data about care is becoming the backbone of home care best practice.  In the past (and in some current settings) the home care worker has kept a book in the home for record keeping, bringing it in periodically to get paid. Today, organizations can use captured information about the home care situation, combining it with information aggregated from other clients or individual care recipient history. Data and the governance procedures to maintain its quality and security will, like other uses of AI, become the foundation for realizing its benefits in home care.

An impressive process was launched in 2013 at an AARP convention in Atlanta. Groups of older adults were shown how to use tablets. A presenter demonstrated and 4H volunteers sat at tables with the attendees to show them how to use them.  The program was called Mentor Up – and the idea was that young people could/should volunteer to help older adults with a device that was unfamiliar and baffling. At that time, the iPad was just three years old. The older adults in the room almost certainly did not own one -- at that time, 26 million older adults were NOT online. So their surprise and delight at what it could do made an impression. The role of young people was equally impressive -- and should be a role model for today.