Voice/AI/Voice Assistants

If your older family members are like most, they do not want to move to senior living. Life expectancy for the 65+ is another 20 years (both men and women).  For those who love their homes, there is no appeal to spending that 20-year life span in a senior living community, even if viewed as affordable – a view not shared by most.  In fact, according to a Harvard housing study, only 13 percent can afford an assisted living facility in their area. And when asked, senior housing industry execs agree that the so-called middle market option never really materialized, though they offer hope: “From an industry perspective, these trends point to the need to keep evolving to address affordability and access while communicating the value of senior living as a proactive solution, not a last resort.”

A search for 2026 and AI concerns is, uh, concerning.   It’s a bubble, it’s a risk, it’s an international safety issue, it’s a trust issue, it needs to be regulated by the government, and so on. And that is just this past month! But has the ship already sailed?  If 90% of Google tech workers use AI at work, 50% of AI agent usage is in software engineering, 90% of software developers use an AI coding assistant at least weekly.  

We all just want more effective help online. We want information, we need suggestions, even helping us with tasks by doing the work for us. Oh, and we would even like the advice to be timely and accurate!  Over the past few years, as people were exploring ChatGPT as an alternative to traditional search, other alternatives emerged. Actually multiple AI assistant alternatives emerged, forcing downward pressure on Google’s ad-based model, which makes up half of its revenue.  Businesses expecting to be found through Google search are seeing a decline in traffic. And that is likely related to lawsuits pertaining to its AI overviews, which eliminate the need to go further into links.

And just in time -- we are on the cusp of the utility of AI agents. Ironically, or maybe not so much, that improvement is inversely proportional to the diminished availability of people to solve our problems.  We see bits and pieces of the decline of people in processes we need.  Whether it is the sign-in kiosk in the healthcare waiting room, the check-in process at the airport, automated creation of pharmacy refill requests, or the customer service ‘interface’ that is now nearly all AI. And screaming ‘agent’ may still not bring the actual person to the phone. What’s positive and likely? [Information is drawn from interviews about “The Future of AI and Older Adults 2030.” Scheduled to be published in early January 2026]

Is everything now voice-enabled -- so that transition is done?  Whine On. Is the response smart or, uh, just a response? Just tried an experiment, asking via Hey Siri for the best technologies to use for people with dementia.  Got a nice and brief summary. Next pass, skipped the ‘Hey Siri’ part, asked the same question. This time it offered up the possibility of using ChatGPT which produced a long and useful list.  So it appears Apple’s partnership with ChatGPT is working well.  But why the first list at all?  People asking the question don’t really want the longer list and are satisfied with the minimum?  Really?  

The aging population has significant implications.  Consider a few assumptions:   Average life expectancy at 65 is mid-80’s, though many will live into their 90s. Older adults want to remain in their home as long as possible.  A quarter of men aged 75+ and 43% of women live alone.   Reports indicate that 46% of those aged 75+ have a disability.  It’s not much of a stretch to imagine that as many as half will need some kind of care assistance in their home at some point.  It is also likely that most people will not be able to afford 24x7 home care. But even if they could afford it, there is a severe home care worker shortage that is likely to worsen over the coming years as baby boomers enter their 80s.

AI technology is permeating every aspect of business technology today.  Increasingly it will be deployed in the care of older adults, as apparent in research reports like The Future of AI in Home Care and an earlier report, The Future of AI and Older Adults (which will be revisited with new research later in 2025).  With little effort, AI-enabled offerings can be found throughout the startup directory of the AgeTech Collaborative from AARP.  So here are five that sound promising from their descriptions -- all info is derived from the startup website or other reference site.

Moving in later can mean greater care needs, but same staffing levels.  This article caught my eye – ‘Significantly more difficult’ to care for today’s assisted living residents. The gist of the story is that people are moving in later, now in their mid-80’s and often because living at home is untenable. Which means they need more help and care than the organizations used to expect.  According to AHCA/NCAL: ”Four in 10 are living with Alzheimer’s disease or other dementias. After a median stay around 22 months, roughly 60% of residents will move out of assisted living to transition to a skilled nursing center.​”