*Diligent plans to expand use cases for its robots beyond Moxi in healthcare facilities. Source: Diligent Robotics

While technology giants compete to create robots for factories and warehouses, Diligent Robotics is doing something more human — their Moxi robot is learning to help those who need help the most: the elderly. The company's recent entry into the prestigious AgeTech Collaborative program from AARP is not just news from the startup world. This is a signal: automation has reached the most delicate area of our lives — caring for the older generation.

What's the point? A robot as a junior medical staff

Moxi is not the kind of humanoid robot from science fiction movies that will have soulful conversations with Grandma. His task is much more prosaic and therefore more ingenious — to take on a routine but necessary job that takes up to 30% of the nurses' time. The delivery of medicines, the collection of tests, the delivery of laundry, the transfer of documents is the very "running around" that exhausts staff and distracts from the direct care of patients.

"Moxi was created not to replace people, but to strengthen them," the founders of Diligent Robotics emphasize. "By freeing nurses from routine, we allow them to focus on what requires human involvement, empathy, and professional expertise."

Why geriatrics? Demographics versus human resources

The aging population is not an abstract demographic curve, but a very specific challenge for the healthcare system. By 2030, one in five residents of developed countries will be over 65 years old. At the same time, the number of people willing to work for a small salary in the field of care is steadily decreasing. Robots in such a situation are not a whim, but a necessity.
 

"We see a growing interest in technologies that can support the independent lifestyle of the elderly and increase staff efficiency," the AARP notes.
 

Participation in the AgeTech Collaborative program gives Diligent access to an invaluable resource — feedback from the target audience itself. Elderly people, their relatives and carers test Moxi in real conditions and help make it truly useful, and not just a technological toy.

How does Moxi work? Patience and hard work instead of artificial intelligence

Contrary to expectations, the main feature of Moxi is not super-modern AI, but reliability and predictability. In a hospital or nursing home setting, this is most important.

Offline navigation. The robot moves independently through the corridors, avoiding people and obstacles, and uses elevators.

A manipulator with tactile sensitivity. He can carefully pick up a variety of items, from a folder with documents to a bottle of water.

Integration with the infrastructure. Moxi can open automatic doors, call an elevator, and interact with other hospital systems.

At the same time, the robot has an important psychological feature — it has large expressive "eyes"-displays that make its presence less frightening for elderly patients.

Who will manage this growing "staff" of robot assistants?

As specialized robots like Moxi appear in dozens and hundreds of medical institutions, a legitimate question will arise about the management of this fleet. How will the hospital be able to optimally distribute tasks among several robots? How to track their "employment" and efficiency?

Specialized management platforms may be required to solve such problems. Interestingly, the logic of the world's first ecosystem for hiring robots jobtorob.com where each robot has a digital profile with its own "skills" and "rating", it could be adapted for medical institutions. The hospital could use a similar system for internal management, seeing Moxi not just as equipment, but as an "employee" with clear responsibilities and a work schedule, whose "workload" needs to be optimized in the same way as human workload.

What is the result? A future where both people and machines will take care of us.

The participation of Diligent Robotics in the AARP program is an important precedent. Technology is finally ceasing to be the preserve of young people and entering the lives of those who need it most.

Support for independence. Robots can help older people stay in their familiar home environment longer, rather than moving to nursing homes.

Improving the quality of care. Nurses and carers who are freed from routine can pay more attention to the psychological state of patients.

Solving the personnel crisis. Automating routine tasks will make the nursing profession more attractive by focusing it on human communication.

"We are only at the beginning of the journey, but we are already seeing how technology can dramatically change the aging experience for millions of people," the experts conclude.

So in the near future, when visiting a relative in the hospital, you may encounter not only a tired nurse, but also a leisurely robot carrying medicines. And this will not be a sign of depersonalization of medicine, but evidence that technology has finally learned to protect the most valuable thing — human attention and care, entrusting machines with all the rough work. And the "workbook" of such a nursing robot will probably be kept in the most progressive digital ecosystem.