baby boomers

A new study offers a conundrum, or maybe a marketing problem.  Most Americans 50 and older don’t trust AI-generated health information, says a new poll published by the University of Michigan. But they do trust their own ability to figure out what information is good and what isn’t when they look for it.  They say they trust WebMD, Healthline. And yet only 32% said it was easy to find accurate health advice.  But how would you know what is accurate? And the 84% who said they got health information from a health care provider, pharmacist, friend or family member in the past year. A friend or family member?  Really?

Don’t we already have technology to live our best life as we age?  Absolutely, as predicted in 2011, needs have been fulfilled, tech innovation has made it so. But do older adults know about it?  Could they afford it?  Could they deploy it in their homes? Will it enable them to age in place?  Do investors view the ‘best life’ suite of capabilities as an opportunity worthy of funding? The process of pitching one product at a time is well established – and innovators are comfortable with it, as are their judges.  But is that what older adults need?  Or would a suite of offerings, with deployment before the need becomes urgent, make more sense?  Here are the four blog posts from June, 2024:

The decline of our tech experience was slow – it was barely noticeable for a while. Then device proliferation in homes – and the corresponding frustration became too obvious to miss. An AARP report notes, "No one prefers badly designed, over-complicated products." Yet that's what we get. Despite preferences, surveys show that today’s user experience for older adults is more problematic than ever. All are confronted with buggy software and frequent bug fix releases, such as a problem on iPhones that an embarrassed Apple redirected software work towards fixing. At the same time, innovation in new categories like Conversational and GenAI, machine learning and prediction have emerged and can help improve experiences if deployed properly. Over the next five years, it is highly likely that:

You know homeowners plan to ‘age in place’ – repeated across all surveys.  It makes sense to them – they like their homes, locations, their familiar neighborhoods, shops, their friends, and neighbors. Statistics underpin the goal for 93% of adults 55+.  And they are willing to spend on services to enable them to remain there – home security, food and supplies delivery, and transportation services if they choose to or must go places without driving. They have fueled growth in the home remodeling businesses, spending on bathroom modifications and other aging-related enablers, especially home care – which may be an out-of-reach luxury for many.