ElliQ, an AI-Driven Social Robot to Alleviate Loneliness: Progress and Lessons Learned.

Background

Loneliness is a significant issue in older adults and can increase the risk of morbidity and mortality.

Objective

To present the development of ElliQ, a proactive, AI-driven social robot with multiple social and health coaching functions specifically designed to address loneliness and support older people.

Development/Implementation

ElliQ, a consumer robot with a friendly appearance, uses voice, sounds, light, and buttons through a touch screen to facilitate conversation, music, video calls, well-being assessments, stress reduction, cognitive games, and health reminders. The robot was deployed by 15 government agencies in the USA. Initial experience suggests it is not only highly engaging for older people but may be able to improve their quality of life and reduce loneliness. In addition, the development of a weekly report that patients can share with their clinicians to allow better integration into routine care is described.

Conclusion

This paper describes the development and real-world implementation of this product innovation and discusses challenges encountered and future directions.

Informations de copyright

© The Author(s) 2024.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

DS is the CEO and co-founder of Intuition Robotics, which developed ElliQ. GI and GC are employees of Intuition Robotics. KL is a former employee of Soul Machines Ltd (an AI company that makes digital humans), and EB is a consultant to Soul Machines Ltd. EB, PMD, and SB are co-developers of the COBOT scale. EB, KL, SB, MC and PMD have no financial relationship with Intuition Robotics. PMD has received grants, advisory fees and/ or stock from other biotechnology companies for unrelated projects and serves on the boards of health systems and advocacy groups.