By Geoffrey Mead
Publication Date: 2026-02-25 00:08:00
Australia’s Royal Commission into Aged Care found a broken system. Now tech companies are promising that artificial intelligence (AI) will solve everything from workforce shortages to loneliness among the elderly.
This is known as Agetech, an industry expected to reach a global value of A$170 billion by 2030. But the promised “solutions” obscure what is actually destroying elder care.
In our new study, we analyzed how 33 agetech companies selling AI for elder care in Australia, East Asia, Europe and North America market their products, including monitoring tools and companion robots.
We have found that their websites, promotional materials and product descriptions portray elder care as inefficient, understaffed and overwhelmed by a growing aging population. Older people are too frail or too many. Nursing staff are overloaded. Human caring is flawed.
And AI is presented as the answer. As the agetech industry grows, governments are also joining this vision of technological salvation. …
