👋 Good Tuesday morning!

There were many interesting conversations about AI in aged care at the Gold Coast last week. 

At an event hosted by Connected Health, George Margelis—one of Australia's most respected voices in aged care—made a compelling case. Australia needs to develop our own Australian AI large language models, and specifically for aged care for two reasons:

Data sovereignty matters; residents' sensitive information shouldn't sit on foreign servers. And Australian context matters; overseas AI doesn't understand our cultural and regulatory practices and terminology. (A very timely remark as the US just told the United Nations that they reject any oversight as they are “focused on establishing American AI as the global gold standard”.) 

George also made an interesting parallel: remember when dedicated information officers seemed like overkill as organisations adopted electronic records and compliance systems? Now they're standard. 

AI adoption officers are following the same path, just faster. If your organisation hasn't asked "who oversees our AI strategy?" it's time to start that conversation.

What we cover this week:

• AI integration in aged care – highlights from the Anglicare Sydney webinar

• Using the 4Ms framework to evaluate aged care technology

• FDA approvals signal AI’s growing role in real healthcare delivery

• Free webinar: Empowering “intrapreneurs” in aged care teams

• New voice AI demo: multilingual aged care assistant using ElevenLabs

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Session Recording: AI in Care for Anglicare Sydney

Last week, I presented in the Anglicare Sydney webinar series on integrating AI into care settings. The recording is now available.

What we covered:

We tackled the key questions organisations are asking: Do we need policies? How do we actually adopt AI at work? What skills will matter as the sector changes? And when will our robot overlords take over? (Spoiler: not yet.)

The session walked through practical frameworks, from tailoring guidelines and running small pilots, to the human skills that become more valuable as AI handles routine work.

🎥 You can watch the recording here 

🗂️ Resources from the session are available here 

🧓 More about Anglicare’s Suicide Prevenion for Seniors program

I'd welcome your thoughts and questions.

Using the 4Ms framework to evaluate aged care technology

A Johns Hopkins paper organises AI applications around the geriatric 4Ms—what Matters, Medication, Mentation, and Mobility—and argues that isolated tools won't work. Technologies must integrate into comprehensive care ecosystems. The review covers predictive analytics using neighbourhood-level data, conversational AI, robotic assistance including brain-computer interfaces, and remote monitoring with wearables. The implementation gaps: AI models underrepresent diverse older adults (something we touched upon a couple of weeks ago), and our staff need training in interpreting AI outputs that current programs don't provide.

The paper highlights why AI pilots often fail to scale in aged care: most vendors sell point solutions (a fall detection system, a chatbot, a monitoring device) rather than integrated platforms. If you're evaluating AI vendors, the 4Ms framework offers a useful filter—ask how their technology fits into your existing care workflows across multiple domains. The paper won't give you implementation guidance, but it explains why piecemeal adoption hasn't worked.

If you're evaluating tech solutions for your organisations, feel free to reach out; I've been watching how different organisations are handling the integration question and can share what's proving useful.

Full paper: Abadir, M., et al. (2025). Innovation in Aging. Read here

AI Being Embedded in Healthcare

Stanford recently published their 2025 AI Index Report—the whole thing's worth a skim if you have the time. But Chapter 5 (Science and Medicine) contains a statistic that's particularly relevant for those of us working in this sector.

In 2023, the US FDA approved 223 AI-enabled medical devices. That's up from just six in 2015.

Meanwhile, news from China shows similar momentum: the city of Shenzhen alone has implemented approximately 450 AI medical products across its healthcare system.

Whilst Australia and the aged care sector operate under different regulatory frameworks, the trajectory is clear. AI is becoming embedded in real healthcare delivery—and it's only a matter of time before we see the effects ripple through to aged care.

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👥 FREE WEBINAR | Intrapreneurs of Care: The Opportunity for Innovation Adoption in Aged Care and Community Sectors

📅 Tuesday 14 October 2025, 10.30–11.30am (AEST)
📍 Online | Hosted by AI Adoption in Aged Care 

As aged care environments face rapid change, technology alone isn't the answer. The key to sustainable innovation lies in unlocking the passion and purpose of your team.

Join Dr Tim Mahlberg Sie, organisational psychologist and founder of The Village at NAB, as he presents a human-centred approach to change. Drawing on his expertise in building innovation communities, Tim will share practical stories and strategies for fostering a culture where every staff member can become an "intrapreneur"—empowered to identify problems, leverage technology, and drive meaningful change.

This webinar is essential for leaders who want to move beyond top-down mandates and build genuinely resilient, innovative organisations that put people at the centre of transformation.

👉 Register Here

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🧩 ElevenLabs

ElevenLabs can be used to create custom voices and AI-powered conversational agents for customer service, virtual assistants, and more. Businesses can also use ElevenLabs for automated voiceovers in content creation like videos and podcasts, using their text-to-speech and voice cloning technologies to generate audio in multiple languages and styles without the need of recording studios. 

Try ElevenLabs here

I've created an AI voice agent demo for a fictitious aged care provider called Everpark. It speaks English, Greek and Vietnamese, so feel free to swap between languages if you speak them. Test it out here - and there's an Easter egg hidden in there, so try mentioning "cauliflower" and see what happens!

I’m not here to hype trends. I’m here to explore the changes shaping ageing—technology included—and to share ideas you can apply in practice. Whether you’re exploring new tools, rethinking services, or looking ahead to what’s coming, I hope you found something here worth your time.

Feel free to forward this to your network or share it with your team.

See you next Tuesday,
George