From Australia to San Francisco: Abi's US chapter begins today

The economics of elder care in the United States are broken for everyone. Direct care workers earn a median of $29,000 per year, which is often below the poverty line. Two-thirds of care homes report that staffing shortages may force them to close. And 10,000 Americans turn 65 every single day. 

At the same time, more than 28% of Americans over age 65 report feeling chronically isolated. Loneliness at that level is as damaging to a person’s health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

These two crises are happening simultaneously, and they’re accelerating. That’s why Abi is coming to the US.

A different kind of robot

If you follow the humanoid robotics space, you know the dominant narrative is task automation. Warehouse logistics. Household chores. Defense applications. 

But the design philosophy behind task-oriented robots is the opposite of what you need when the goal is human connection. You can't make someone feel safe and cared for with a robot that looks like it belongs in a factory. Trust has to be earned. And earning it requires a fundamentally different approach to AI, design, and social science.

Abi is built to be warm, approachable, and emotionally attuned because we know that aesthetics and emotional tone aren't cosmetic. They're core to whether this technology actually works. She converses in 90 languages. She remembers previous conversations and responds with empathy and care.

In group settings, Abi leads tai chi, runs trivia, and plays music. In one-on-one moments, she uses natural speech patterns, including the small hesitations and warmth that make conversation feel human. Because it turns out those small details matter enormously in how residents experience real connection.

What we’ve already seen in Australia

Abi has logged more than 3,500 hours of companionship across elder care facilities in Australia. We're commercially deployed and generating revenue - which puts us in rare company for a social humanoid robot anywhere in the world.

The care teams we partner with tell us she frees them up to focus on the clinical and physical tasks they were trained for, like medication delivery, cognitive assessments, and mobility support, rather than stretching impossible hours across individual connection time.

One resident in a customer home had lost the ability to communicate in his second language, English - something we see often with cognitive decline. When Abi started speaking to him in Mandarin, he lit up. He began looking forward to their visits, and eventually, he started reading Mandarin poetry to Abi. And unexpectedly, other residents started pulling up chairs just to listen. Abi not only gave him his language back, but also gave him his community back.

When care staff introduce residents to Abi, the response is almost always a combination of curiosity, warmth, and then companionship. That is what we're building toward.

The US is next

The scale of the loneliness crisis here, the urgency of the caregiving shortage, and the openness of care communities to incorporate innovative models of support make this the right market, right now. 

How successful and impactful this technology will be depends on how the robots make people feel. That’s the standard we hold Abi to. It’s the reason we’ve built the emotional intelligence layer the way we have. And it’s the reason we’re here. 

If you run or work in an assisted living home in the US and you’re ready to rethink what companionship at scale looks like for your residents, join our US waitlist for an opportunity to be one of the first US assisted living communities in the US to work with Abi to address resident loneliness.

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