That may be because Mike was talking to an artificial intelligence-powered robot called Abbi that had been preloaded with pictures and topics from his life experiences. Running on a small humanoid robot made bySoftBank, the robot's software was developed by Worcester Polytechnic Institute professor Fiona Yuan and some of her students.
Gail said she appreciated how the robot tilted its head, moved its eyes, and gestured as it conversed with Mike. But the software sometimes glitched, and Mike had trouble hitting buttons on the robot's small touch screen, she said.
"Loneliness is a big thing," Gail said. "I love the robot, but it needs to be very simple."
Abbi will soon be upgraded to a newer version of hardware with a bigger touch screen and better microphones, WPI student Zachary Zhao said. Currently, the conversational AI software runs on an internet server, introducing delays, but eventually it could run on the robot for smoother chatting, Zhao said.
Families for about half of the two-dozen residents in memory care at the facility, Wingate Residences at Needham, signed up to try a conversation with Abbi, said Jose Soto, director of the unit. Though the robot is still experimental, the eventual goal is not to replace human caregivers but to offer opportunities for conversation when the staff isn't available, such as late at night.
"We can't cure the disease, but we are here to provide our residents with as many moments of joy as we can through this journey that they're on," Soto said. "And this is a great addition to what we do."
The WPI robot effort is just one of dozens of academic projects and startup companies in the Boston area seeking to address the challenges of a rapidly aging population amid a shortage of caregivers.
Of 1.2 million people aged 65 or older living in Massachusetts, 13 percent have dementia, 28 percent have diabetes, and more than one-third suffer from depression, according to research done by the University of Massachusetts and the Point32Health Foundation. At the same time, about one-quarter of positions for direct care workers, registered nurses, and social workers in home health care remain unfilled.
But while local entrepreneurs have been talking about creating a "Silicon Valley for age-tech" for about a decade, most of the startups have not attracted large amounts of venture capital. A few companies that have raised tens of millions of dollars have products aimed at more than just the senior market, such as online mental health service Author Health and wearable maker Embr Labs.
"There's a lot of [early-stage VC] round participants," Dave Watkins, chief executive and cofounder at Livindi, said. "There's not a lot of ongoing support. So it's up to your recurring revenues."
The seven-year-old company in Wayland sells a sensor-based monitoring service for seniors and has about 4,500 users, Watkins said.
The sector has also been hurt by the general downturn in VC financing. Massachusetts startups raised $2.6 billion in the second quarter of this year, the least in any quarter since 2017.
"Two or three years ago, we started to see this big uptick in, whether you want to call it elder tech, age tech, silver tech," said Andy Miller, who heads AARP's Innovation Labs and is based in Natick. "With economic conditions in the last year, you've seen investing slow, and some funds are not writing as big checks."
Still, companies like Embr Labs in Boston that can market to a broader audience have an advantage. Using technology developed by MIT's Age Lab, Embr developed a wristband that helps cool the body temperature of a woman experiencing hot flashes during menopause. But there are additional use cases.
Laurie Jewett was only 39 in 2014 when she was treated for breast cancer and had medically induced menopause to help avoid a recurrence. She found herself drenched in sweat up to 20 times a day.
"It was embarrassing, and it was gross," she said.
After a few years, she discovered Embr's wristband. Called the Wave, the device ended her hot flashes by sending cooling sensations to nerves in her wrist when she pushed a button. "It was a total game changer," Jewett said.
Embr has raised $66 million and is working with researchers at University of Massachusetts Amherst on an AI model that may be able to predict and prevent hot flashes before they occur. The current wristband relies on the user pushing a button after a hot flash has started.
The next version will let users "just put something on, without taking more drugs, and have their hot flashes managed," chief technology officer and cofounder Matt Smith said.
That could broaden the appeal of Embr's wearable and drive further investments in local "age-tech" startups.