120. Meela and RiverSpring: Beating Depression & Anxiety With Companion AI

Host Matt Reiners is joined by Josh Sach, Founder and CEO of Meela, and David Finkelstein, CIO of RiverSpring Living, to discuss how AI companion technology is transforming senior living.

Josh shares the personal story that inspired him to create Meela, a voice-based AI companion accessible through any phone that provides conversation, emotional support, and practical assistance for older adults. Designed to help address social isolation and the growing care gap, Meela offers 24/7 engagement while encouraging healthy habits and human connection.

David explains how RiverSpring Living piloted Meela across multiple levels of care and conducted a clinical study that showed measurable reductions in anxiety, loneliness, and depression among participating residents. He also discusses how AI can serve as a workforce multiplier, supporting staff by identifying resident concerns and improving communication.

Together, they explore the balance between human care and AI assistance, the importance of thoughtful implementation, and how companion AI may play a critical role in the future of aging services.

Learn more about RiverSpring Living's technology mission on their website.

Discover more about Meela on their website.

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Transcript

 Welcome back to another episode of Raising Tech. I am very excited for this episode and I think it's really, uh, on the forefront of something huge that's coming within our industry. I am joined by Josh Sach, the founder and CEO of Meela. And David Finkelstein, the Chief Information Officer at RiverSpring Living.

I got a chance to connect with Josh recently and they're building some really cool stuff, so I'm excited to jump into it. And with David being one of the communities that's using it, thought it might be great to hear from him as well. So, Josh, let's start with you. What inspired the idea behind Meela and what gap were you hoping to fill in the aging and senior living space?

Yeah. First of all, thank you so much for having me on the podcast, Matt. And it was a pleasure to see you back in Arizona. It comes from a deeply personal space, so, uh, I was fortunate enough to meet my now wife in high school and unfortunately while we were in high school, her dad, who was an attorney in New York City.

Ended up getting cancer and the cancer on his neck, unfortunately, ended up spreading, became treatment resistant, developed Parkinson's, and we watched him go through the aging process and ourselves, the family, loved ones go through the aging process. And then we also, as we were going from in-home care to community setting to palliative care where he passed, experienced, you know, from the.

A third person's perspective, what it's, what some of the tensions organizations that support the aging process go through. I've been in the tech sector basically my entire professional career. Worked at companies like Microsoft. I worked on the Windows product as well as Lyft, where I helped spin up a division of business called Lyft Media.

When. AI got to a place where it was powerful enough to have a emotionally resonant conversation. Decided to quit my job and start building Meela. And at the core of it, uh, you know, comes from this thesis that there are a lot of people that require care, and that could be emotional support. It could be, you know, help fixing their toilet.

It could be help, you know, getting to their doctor's appointment. And the number of people that are able to deliver that care around the clock is. Kind of shrinking, if not staying the same. So you have number of people able to deliver care and the numerator and the number of people requiring care. And the denominator and the denominator is exploding.

And you have the numerator staying roughly the same. So as time goes on, um, the care gap is going to widen. And this is a phenomenon that, you know, is well documented in the industry without the augmentation of technology, either aging is going to get very expensive, or our quality of life is going to deteriorate.

And our job here at Meela is to make sure that you know, both the emotional components of aging are tended to, as well as some of the tactical boots on the ground components are tended to as well. And we partner with senior living organizations to make, make life easier with voice, ai.

Cool. Yeah, and I know we'll jump into what that actually means here in a little bit, Josh, and I appreciate you sharing that background with us and kudos to you for being with your high school sweetheart. So, uh, you know, it's beautiful. Um, and, and David, and I'll say, and I was telling David before we hit record, I feel like since I've been in the industry for 10 years, you know, a lot of innovation technology everyone has put David on a pedestal.

So no pressure here, David. Really excited to have you on today, but I'm wondering from your side, like what challenges or gaps in the workforce were you seeing at RiverSpring that made you open to exploring something like Meela? I. 

Thanks Matt. Appreciate you having us on this podcast and looking forward to talking with your viewers and listeners.

So let me take you rewind a little bit, uh, to some of my experiences here. So I joined RiverSpring living back in 2012, about 14 years ago. As the chief information officer had a lot of cleaning up to do from just IT infrastructure and modernizing some of the systems. But the real change or the turning point happened around 2021, um, quite in the middle of COVID.

Uh, we were taking care of a gentleman that was referred to us through a, a local hospital system, and he went through our various levels of care through the organization. And the, he eventually passed while he was in our nursing home, um, in the middle of COVID, not of COVID, but of other complications from his illnesses.

Um, his wife and his family were just so. I guess thankful that we were able to provide them the care, the comfort, the reassurance during the last year of his life that they wanted to show their appreciation, so they decided to make a donation to the organization, a sizable donation to be only used for technology projects.

So this was really a time in my career where it's always fighting for budget, always fighting for ideas, fighting for, just keep the lights on to being like a kid in the candy store, where now I have a pot of money that I have to now safeguard and keep as if it was my own, because that's the the kind of way we took this donation.

And when we really established a team and can went through a digital transformation journey through the organization. We really, we, we, uh, we brought in some of the board members. We hired a clinical project manager, and we went to the marketplace to look for technology. Solutions that would aim, that would really solve a triple aim for us.

We wanted to make sure the resident experience for the residents that stay under our roof ends up with a better experience one way or another. We wanted to have a staff experience to be enhanced. We want to have, give them the tools, the technologies, the services and systems to make their job easier.

And at the end of the day, we wanted to have things that are financially affordable and can fit within the budget. Even though the, the initial funding of this was through the grant, we wanted to make sure things were sustainable. So we went through some very interesting projects. We ended up putting some technologies in our rehabilitation gym, some robots, some um, some virtual reality headsets, some, uh, some advanced technologies to help patients get better during their care Here.

And then we were introduced through a mutual friend, Josh and his team about this idea of Meela. He came into our boardroom, met with a team of about 15, 20 of us senior staff members, pitched his concept of what Meela was and how it was gonna work, did a quick demonstration of how the product worked and, and, and was, and it was very.

Lifelike. It was very interactive. It just wasn't robotic as, as many of the other voice enabled AI chatbots that we've seen. So we left that meeting. We talked internally and we brought him back and said, well, we have an opportunity for you. Uh, we'd like to be a part of a pilot because we do everything with pilots first before we roll it out to make sure it works.

But we want something even better than that. We're 107 years old. RiverSpring is known as a progressive organization. We wanna do an exclusive pilot, so we want you to shut down your entire sales chain for anyone else that you're talking to, and we want you to do a pilot here at RiverSpring to, to prove and see how the product can work and how it can be effective in the organization.

After some thinking a few days came back to us and says, yeah, we can make that work. So we went to, to really the attorneys to develop a license agreement that made sense from a HIPAA and privacy perspective, making sure that we can partner with Josh and his team to roll this system out across our organization.

We have skilled nursing, we have independent living, we have assisted living, and we have a home care agency. All that had the opportunity to be able to benefit from, um, this product. Um, we decided to do a small pilot. So we got together, um, our care managers, we got together our social workers. We got to give our activities people, and between our team and Josh's team, we went to.

Uh, community meetings. We went to family council meetings. We went to resident council meetings. We went to activity groups to try to figure out what the interest is for the residents to participate in using something like Meela. Um, we have probably six or 700 residents on this campus. Not everyone is, is, is.

Technically or clinically or cognitively capable of even making a conversation on a telephone. So that limited our pool. But we did come out with about 50 residents across the different levels of care that wanted to participate in this pilot. Eventually, I think we ended up with 28 that that saw through the entire pilot and we did through our medical director and our IRB.

We did a clinical, a true clinical trial with before and after. So we got, uh, various. Publicly, um, acknowledge scales of depression, of isolation, of anxiety, and we did before and after, and we, after I think a six or eight week pro project, we chose and we showed that there was a clinical, a significantly significant clinical reduction in anxiety and in in loneliness.

And in depression. And actually that, that article in that research study was just recently published in one of the medical journals. Uh, I think it's coming out in March. 

Wow. I love that. And David, thank you for walking us through all that. And it's beautiful that, you know, through that donation and that grant, you guys are able to do all this technology and it's so cool to see, like you talk about RiverSpring being progressive, I think you're one of the few, if not the only organization helping older adults that has technology highlighted.

In your main diviv on your website. So, uh, it's so cool that you guys are able to do all that and uh, it's really awesome to hear about the pilot and good on you for getting an exclusive pilot. I feel like those are rare. So, uh, good for you to be the first to try out Meela and, and Josh, I'm wondering from your perspective, 'cause we've talked a little bit about Meela and like, could you just describe what it actually does?

Like what makes it a companion AI and how does that fit into residents' daily lives? 

Yeah, so it's a great question. Um, the way I like to think about Meela, so I'll, I'll just take a step back and explain what it is for the, uh, listeners that haven't heard of Meela before, is it's like a phone buddy that is accessible to all residents in 14 languages, um, and is just a phone call away.

So. Meela, you can talk to Meela over a landline, a rotary dial, a cell phone, a flip phone, and you chat with her like you would any other, you know, any other phone buddy or friend, and she remembers things from past conversations and personalizes the experience towards you. So if you love talking about the Yankees, for example, she'll talk to you about the Yankees.

Um. And like I said, we experienced this need for this product to exist. As Emily and I, my wife and I were going through this process with her dad, um, we realized that even in the best communities and even in the best staffed communities. And with the best family members, you know, even if you call for an hour a day, there are still 23 hours in the day that kind of go untouched.

So, and that's for the best family members now. Um, unfortunately isolation is rampant and very prevalent within the senior demographic. So, um. Basically we designed this chat buddy for, um, for these older adults. We're very forward with the fact that this is not a person, so we don't try and obfuscate that.

Um, and we tell the residents, Hey, look, there are certain things that are not a, you're not able to talk to Meela about for safety reasons. So Meela doesn't give medical advice, financial advice, legal advice, and she doesn't get sexual. Um, and, uh, you know. The way it fits into people's lives is based on what they need.

So there will be certain people that need somebody to talk to on tough days, right? When they're having, uh, trouble with their roommate, for example, and they'll talk to Meela on that day. And that conversation can range between two minutes and, you know, 25 minutes. Some people like, uh, we were talking about earlier.

Wanna just talk about the Yankees and there's nobody around them that can talk about the Yankees for 60 minutes three times a week. And that's Meela for them. Um, there are other people that, you know, want to just reminisce and talk about the good old days when they used to, you know, go fishing or whatever it might be.

And they do that on a monthly cadence. So, um, Meela kind of fits different voids in people's lives and helps people live more full lives. The objective with Meela is that she's also a force for good. So she'll encourage human interaction, she'll encourage. Human connection and exercise and being healthy so that people are able to live their best lives.

As encouraged by Meela, um, I hope that answered the question. 

That answered it, it sounds like I need Meela in my own life to remind me to exercise and eat right and all that fun stuff. But, uh, you know, I think it's, it's really cool to see, um, how that can overall impact. And, you know, I think, I think of my dad who avidly hates the Yankee, so if he ever talks to Meela, it'd be like every anti Yankee conversation.

I think that's possible. Uh, but I digress. Um, and, and David, I know you kind of talked about like what. You know, some of those early meetings looked like and bring it to the residents, but I'm wondering like what that early implementation looked like. Like how were the residents responding to Meela when first introduced?

I can sometimes understand AI can be scary, but I'm just wondering like what some of those first conversations looked and maybe sounded like. 

I think that. You know, at the beginning of every single call, because I get a call from Meela a few times a week and I chat with her about lots of different things.

Every call starts with, I'm your AI companion. So it's kind of reminding them that this is not a real person that they're talking to. And you know, I, I know a lot of the residents. That live in the facility here personally, I go up and help serve breakfast once a week and meet them in the hallway and have good conversations with them.

And a lot of times they'll come to me and say, well, yeah, you know, all my friends and neighbors taking the Yankee exhibit don't want to hear me talk about the Yankees anymore. But Meela keeps on doing that. Um, the best example I had, and it's actually timely 'cause I guess it's almost exactly a year ago, um, there was a story that I heard that a bunch of residents got together in a activity room to watch the Super Bowl.

And at whatever the appointed time, one of the residents had their appointed call. So her phone rang and it was Meela, and she had to excuse herself from watching the Super Bowl because it was more important for her at that time to take a call with Meela and chat with her on what, what went on with the day.

I mean, there was some residents are in bedbound that are really, this is their only interaction other than the nurse that helps them with their medications and their, and their food service workers help them with their meals. This is the only interaction they have with people because they're bedbound and you could see the cheerfulness.

I mean, Josh has a couple of video interviews with some of the people that have used the system, and it's really uplifting to see that. If nothing else, it's a 20 minute or half hour bright light in their day to help them cope with their situation, with their medical condition and give them something to look forward to the next day or the day after.

So I think it's been something that fits. It's not everybody. We had a number of people that. Tried it for a couple weeks and thought it was not, not fun or not interesting. We, some people says, I have my friends and family. I don't need to talk with a robot. Fine, that's not, then it's not for you. But there is a niche and a relatively large niche of people that this is very therapeutic and helpful across to, to get them through the.

I think it's a great point and when, you know, I think back to my grandmother when she was still alive and I would make it a point to, uh, at least call her weekly and, you know, that hour a week made her her life, but I know a lot of people weren't calling her. So to have something like Meela that could still engage with her, you know, I think, uh, you know, makes me feel good that they're able to give that to other people.

And, um, the next question I is, is. For, again, for you David. 'cause you know, I think a lot of people outside of the industry are not working in these communities. Assume older adults are resistant to tech. Um, and maybe not so much Meela directly, but you guys are obviously embracing technology, using technology.

I'm wondering, David, like what's been your experience with the adoption curve with technology, with residents, especially, you know, since you started there. Uh, I think you said like 14 years ago. Like how has that changed over the years? 

Well, you, you have, you know, you, you can't lump all the seniors into one bucket.

Um, there, there are a lot of individuals. You have plenty of people that walk around with their flip phones. You got plenty of people that walk around with their, um, their, their iPads and they can, can navigate that pretty easily. Um, and we get plenty of phone calls down in it about someone how can't figure out how to work the remote control to change the channel.

Uh, I've seen other AI. Companion systems that we relied on devices like an Alexa or some other piece of hardware. And one of the things that got us very interested in working with Josh and Meela is that all you need is the telephone. And one of the things that we've learned over the, of taking care of residents over time is that even as people cognitively in their difference.

Stages of their life. They may be some forms of dementia or some Alzheimer's. The reflex of answering a ringing phone is one of the last things for them to lose. So even when someone in the declining state can still be through that reflex, even if they pick up the phone and they only say two or three words and Meela talks for the rest of the time, it's therapeutic for them.

And so we, we, we. We didn't, there, there are plenty of residents out of the five, 600 that we have on our campus that we self screen that didn't, wouldn't work well with Meela and we just, you know, didn't introduce them and didn't hear about it. But there are others that are, you know, with peer pressure.

Some resident will talk to another resident. Well, I'm doing Meela, and it's great. All right, let me try it. Let me figure out how to do it. So I think the residents have their own lives. This is where they live. This is their houses. Sometimes we feel like we're invading their privacy 'cause we're going into their house 'cause this is where they live.

But the whole idea is to really help people, meet people where they are and be the best tools and, and, and supports for them to live the best life that they can. 

It's a great point and uh, you know, it makes me think when you mentioned the peer pressure, I think that's the one thing that remains constant throughout our lives.

I see it with my 4-year-old daughter and the peer pressure she gets from her, her schoolmates. I see it, uh, in these communities. Of course, I think it's the one thing that remains constant throughout the course of life. Um, but, but Josh, I am wondering, 'cause you know, sometimes of course you, and to David's point, you can't put all older adults into one bucket, but some think they are like tech phobic, but like how did you design Meela to overcome that tech phobia?

Great question. Um, we lead with trust and transparency. Um, so something that's really important for older adults, and I think people generally, especially when becoming acquainted with a new technology, is, um, laying down the rules of engagement, like laying down the, the lay of the land and then also introducing it to them in a form factor.

Like David was saying, they're accustomed to, and that something that's not new that they need to learn. So even though we have like, you know, the most cutting edge LLMs and uh, really sophisticated infrastructure that powers conversations with Meela, um, the end user behind the phone call. Is it's kind of, uh, obfuscated from them how how much sophistication is having is happening behind the, behind the phone.

It's only a phone call. Um, so we, we tried to keep it as accessible for there. I think there's, I don't know if it's a river spring, but we have a user that's 103 and you know, visually impaired. But he can still answer a phone and he is fully cognitively intact. Um, and he's able to have great conversation with Meela and it's a great outlet for him.

Um, so thinking about all of the, what seems to be edge cases of you, of you, of the senior demographic, um, and try to be inclusive of all of them. Like what is the most common denominator? Um, and like I said, a lot of that intuition was built from our experience of watching, uh, Elliot age. 

Yeah, no, it's, it makes a lot of sense and I love how you guys are doing it, like through phone calls.

I think too many times technology companies try and come in and like just force everybody to use a very specific app and then there's barriers to using the app. So I love that you guys are making a phone call, something that's uh, native to how people are communicating already today. Um. And David, I'm wondering from your point of view, 'cause obviously, you know, there's gaps in the workforce, if not today, you know, going to be taking place here in the next couple years, few years, uh, as we see some of these aging demographics shift.

And I'm wondering like, what do you think about that line between like human care and AI assistance? And I'm wondering like how you're thinking through that today and maybe how you're thinking about it into the future here. 

Sure. So that's one of the good things about working with Josh and his team as a startup, instead of having to have an established product that's been around for 20 years and just say, all right, your good ideas are great, but you're not changing the product.

So him and his team have been very responsive in looking how we can expand Meela to use it a little bit outside of the initial use case of a a companion phone call. So, for example, we, uh, she will listen for certain keywords or certain ideas. So if someone is, may complaining that their knee hurts for two or three days in a row, while me, while Meela will not provide medical advice or guidance, she can send an alert to our medical director saying.

Mrs. Smith is having traveled with her knee. Why don't you go visit her and see how that's going? So we're, we're kind of helping the clinicians around. Same thing with food service. The person's complaining that the food's cold or there's not enough salt in it all the time. Let's get a note to the me, uh, the food service director to see them.

Or they're complaining it's too hot in their room. Get them to over to engineering. So we're trying to pick up. Comments that maybe don't rise to the of a complaint, but comments that will help the resident in their stay by picking them outta that conversation. I know that Josh and his team are working with other ways of.

Putting questions into the conversation interstitial, so that if we need to do kind of a survey but not really a survey, we can kind of ask questions that we want the answers to and be able to come back with that feedback through the system without having to go put a survey system together or get out paper or call people separately.

So we're trying to really expand the scope of how Meela can be used in addition to its purpose as, as a. Voice companion. And that's really where we see the future going and how it can help our workforce and being much more efficient. 

A hundred percent. Um, one of the cool things that we're doing is identifying trends across residents.

So. If David, Matt, and Josh all say that the fish is way overcooked at the community, uh, the dining director gets a trend from, uh, or the culinary team gets a trend from Meela on a weekly basis saying, Hey, we noticed that something is up with the fish. Um, the way we're kind of thinking about Meela uh, moving forward is we want residents and staff to think about her like a workforce multiplier.

Or the 11th employee on a 10 person team. So you're able to ask her specific questions about, you know, what time the mail gets delivered at the community. You can ask her to fill out a work order, uh, whether you have Works, hub or tells. And Meela is able to actually fill out those, uh, work orders and then the resident can call back and say, Hey, what's going on with my.

Uh, toilet, when is it gonna get fixed? Um, the same way you would a real physical human being. Um, that works at the community. So we bucket it into two groups. It's the tactical stuff that Meela needs to do that, you know, any staff member at a community would do, like. You know, asking questions about how people are doing, getting their toilets fixed and tickets up, and, you know, ordering them Ubers.

And then there is also the soft and mushy, which is, Hey, I want to talk about the Yankees for an hour. And staff members just don't have time to do that every single day, and Meela is able to do both. So, uh, it's, uh, 10th or a hundredth of the cost of a staff member. And you're able to deliver it, uh, to every single resident, 24 7.

So that's the quality of care we're trying to, uh, deliver to all seniors. Um, yeah. 

Yeah. I love that. It's like. In addition to helping with that social isolation at the resident level, like that instant feedback loop to the staff, which is just, I think so smart, um, and is a way to do that. 'cause you know, you hear too many communities doing their yearly review and then they get that information.

But this allows it, uh, in real time, you know, day to day, week to week, how often you guys are looking at it. And, uh, I have to call out, go Orioles, or my dad would be very mad if he listens to this episode. Too many Yankees examples. But I'll back off. Um, and next question for you, David.

Can you share any moments that surprise you, whether positively or otherwise in seeing Meela interact in your community? 

I, I think it's the kind of the buzz around the residents that when you go and see them outside of the normal context, just walking them down, walking down the hall. And I heard you had something to do with bringing Meela here.

Um, or when, you know, the pilot was ending towards the end of, uh, last year and what we gonna be losing, Meela, are we gonna. Extend this or expand this 'cause we don't wanna lose it. So having the, the stickiness or the want of to continue the, the application, um, was definitely a, um, a, it was, it was interesting to see and it was great to see the residents that, you know, and you, I talked to 'em in other contexts to, to really be the big pioneers and the, the, the, the cheerleaders for this.

One of the things that we worked together and weren't as successful with, and I know that Josh is working on solving that, is we wanted to roll this out to our various home care patients. And the issue with home care is trying to get the patient and the caregiver and the MA team member at the same place and the same time to explain to the patient the Meela product and enroll them into the system and, you know, and get them through their first phone call or two.

And logistics of that was very difficult. But Josh and his team has worked very hard to be able to do kind of self-service enrollment, so we can give the caregiver or a family member in, people interested in the home can do this at their own time, at their own pace, whenever they want to do it without having to have.

Caregiver or a meal representative there, and that has helped solve that one big problem that we had in the front where we couldn't enroll enough people in our home care to make a big difference. And we're hoping that this will help us in getting people in our community programs, the more of the ability to use it.

I think it's really smart to think about that, David. I think, you know, it's not a surprise to anybody in this industry if you look at the percentages of the people trying to age in place or aging at home. So looking for tools like Meela to kind of help extend that river spring, um, arm and that impact and that support, I think it's really smart.

Um, so, and it makes a lot of sense and to your point earlier, you know, it's great when you can work with startups and they can take that feedback. They're nimble, they can work through it. I definitely have worked at startups and I've worked at bigger companies and it's a night and day difference when it comes to product development or really prioritizing that client and customer experience, so that's 

awesome.

That was our, that was one of our biggest concerns upfront. Even though we were very interested in, in the technology and the product and the team and everything like that, we kind of take a very. Tentative pilot approach for any new companies that we work with, because we don't want to end up with a dead end product or a product that we have to rip, rip it out in a way.

So I know that after, not too long after we did this, you know, Josh secured funding to be able to make his enterprise. Sustainable and that helped us and really feel much more comfortable in continuing the rollout and the expansion of Meela within the organization, knowing that they'll, they're not around for a week or a mo, they're gonna around for the, for the, for the long haul and to be able to be partners forever for with us.

Absolutely. Yeah. If I had a dollar for every time I came across a startup in this industry, that's nowhere to be seen today. I probably could retire right now, but that's a, another story for another day. Um, and then Josh, looking ahead, like how do you see companion AI evolving in the next few years and what might that mean for senior living at scale?

Yeah, I think it, it's, it is a really good question. Um. With every new technology wave. Um, I think if we zoom back all the way to the start of human computer interaction, uh, back in, let's say the fifties or sixties where you just had pong, right? You had a couple lines on a screen and then like a ping pong ball in between and.

That was really the first time you had human computer interaction. And then, you know, 10 years later, or 20 years later, we had Pac-Man. And then 10 years later you had computers playing chess. And then another 10 years later you had Sims, for example. And there started to become this like emotional component.

And then that was a little bit weird, and then some time passed and then it become kind of normalized. We're gonna see that same trend happen with this technology. So. We're still in the early adoption phase and it's still getting demystified, so to speak. Um, I think people are gonna come around to the fact that, listen, this is a fundamental, you know, problem, that if we don't have technology to augment, we won't be able to solve.

And as long as you partner with. Organizations that prioritize safety and have the right safeguards in place in their platforms, there is a good way to leverage this technology that is good for the residents, that is good for the organizations and good for the families. Um. There will probably be some bad actors that kind of muddy the waters.

And that's why I think it's really important to look at the founder and, you know, the organization's charter and say like, look under the hood and say, Hey, why are you doing this? You know, like, what are, what are the true incentives behind this? Um, everybody that we hire on our team here, we make sure has, you know, really strong mission conviction.

So. Um, I think people will, in summary, lighten up on the concept and, um, you know, like David was saying. At the end of the day, there is going to be a percentage in every senior living community of people that could benefit from this product. The decision makers that sit behind the seat, whether or not to try a technology like this, I would encourage them to just keep an open mind.

When it comes to this, because they're ultimately like the gatekeeper as to whether or not, uh, the residents can get this medicine, so to speak, in air quotes. Um, yeah, it's, it's very low risk and it's, you know, if you don't want to continue talking to Meela, you just say, Hey, Meela, stop, stop calling me, and she'll stop.

And uh, like David was saying, we have a. Early medical journal, published academic research study that suggests, you know, decreases in anxiety and depression at 95 and 99% confidence measured with clinical tools. So you have something that's very low risk and affordable and, you know, potentially very high, um, high reward.

So I think people will come around to that.

I think it's, I think it's inevitable, right? When I think about the AI companion and what that can look like, and I think especially for helping our older adults and like.

Having someone there that's 24 7 that's available to speak. I mean, we've all seen the data around social isolation and I feel like technology is one of those things that can really help, um, in some of these AI companions that are, you know, personalized and able to hold conversations is, is the wave of the future.

And my last question, we'll end it with you here, David, you know, what would you say to other CIOs or senior living operators who are curious but maybe hesitant about bringing AI into aging services? 

So I think that, you know, if you take our approach that we've gone through for the last three or four years, whether or not we had the funding through this donor is one thing.

But to come up with a, an organization goal and a project saying, I'm gonna try small pilots with the aim of resident satisfaction, staff satisfaction, and budget deficiencies. And when you look at that, I mean, there's, it's, it's almost, uh. No brainer to pick something that's low cost of entry. It needs a phone call and a small monthly subscription fee.

It has a huge upside to potential of reducing, um, depression, isolation, anxiety, possibly even moving to reduction in medication use, better moving behavior, which then. It gets expanded between residents and staff and just the environment of care within the organization. Um, and as long as you approach this with a small pilot, you're not gonna give this to every single resident and walk away and hope that it works, you know, thoughtfully roll it out.

See how it works. I don't see there's any downside of, of not doing that. I have a number of colleagues. I have a call tomorrow with another colleague in Washington, DC area that's asking about Meela for this. I've talked with other colleagues. I've spoken at a number of different conferences on, on how successful this has been, and it's all, you know.

My job to help Josh and his team is get the word out, try it, make sure it works. Make sure that you have the opportunity of giving your residents a better life to live. 

I love it. Well, David, I feel like we gotta give you a microphone to drop after that, but just wanna thank you both for coming on today and walking us through this.

I think the collaboration between provider and technology partner is just so vital and it sounds like you guys are attacking it the right way. So thank you gentlemen



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