chatbots

It’s 2024 -- chatbots, yuck? Given the pace of change in AI technology – both the software and its rate of adoption – it’s curious that recently the Wall Street Journal published an aging survey about what customers don’t use and/or like about chatbots. These observations include the usual: ‘hallucinated’ answers; lack of customer awareness that they are talking to a chatbot (really???); too nosy. Or it asked too many questions; couldn’t handle two questions. Which would make this article, like much of media coverage of AI, sound negative. Too late, adoption happened anyway. This is a commentary, perhaps, on the nature of news media in general, who either are mirroring the AI skepticism in the public, or promoting it. But clearly with chatbot adoption, the public is paying new attention. 

The report is published, the feedback positive, observations strike a chord.  Necessity will drive AI usage in care work across all five care types (healthcare, home health care, home care, senior living, and Skilled Nursing Facilities). Issues of worker shortage, staff burnout, or migration of care work into the home will result in broader deployment of AI technology (whether explicitly or inside other software tools). And regulatory initiatives will help overcome trust issues for consumers. Over the next few years, care organizations will make more disciplined use of their own data that an AI technology such as a chatbot can access or present to a caregiver. The changes that are most likely within the next five years? See today-future comparison chart below and check out the report here.   

AI and older adults – powerful if enabled. There are few limits to the possible benefits of AI in its many forms, conversational, generative, Chatbots and more. Some say that we are in The Golden Age of AI. But constraints faced now and in coming years are beginning to emerge from public and political debates about privacy, ethics and proposed regulation. They will be coupled with the lagging pace of institutions, particularly healthcare, to change aging systems that can help realize the benefits. Within five years, however, it is inevitable that the role of this tech revolution in our lives and those of older adults will enable changes in society’s focus, occurring in and across multiple domains. The following domains will add AI (via voice or other interaction modes) to services, including: