£1m Longitude Prize awarded to AI smart glasses companion for people living with dementia
The Longitude Prize on Dementia has awarded the £1 million grand prize to CrossSense, a personalised AI-powered assistant, developed for smart glasses, that identifies everyday objects and guides people living with early-stage dementia through daily activities, with the ultimate aim of supporting them to live safely in their own homes for longer.
Szczepan Orlins, CEO of CrossSense, said: “Winning the Longitude Prize on Dementia is a dream come true. As a small team with big ambitions, the prize’s support has accelerated CrossSense in ways that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.
“The technology is designed to support daily living, integrating multiple senses to simplify essential tasks. We’re grateful to the people living with dementia and their families who helped shape it. This win brings us closer to making CrossSense available to the public within the next year.”
By asking gentle prompts, CrossSense’s AI companion – called Wispy – understands and learns a person’s unique way of doing things, with the AI adapting to each user’s needs as their dementia progresses.
The glasses capture the environment of the person living with dementia and the AI interprets that information to help the user to do the things that define independence – feeling confident in their own home, taking good care of themselves, planning the day ahead, completing planned activities and hosting friends and family.
CrossSense has been developed by the London-based social enterprise, CrossSense Ltd. The team trained the technology with dozens of everyday activities including getting dressed, managing household chores safely, making a cup of tea and interacting with loved ones.
Wispy asks helpful questions and offers prompts so that the user makes their own choices – and talks through what to do when a person cannot remember a particular step in a process.
The interactive, talkative and patient AI companion offers cognitive stimulation to get people thinking, talking and imagining, so that individuals continue to see the relationships between things (e.g. kitchen, mugs, spoons, teabags, water, kettle and milk are all connected to making a cup of tea), which helps to maintain neural connections, slow cognitive decline in early-stage dementia and improve quality of life.
Working with the University of Sussex and a panel of people affected by dementia, the team observed improvements in some users’ ability in naming objects, and other cognitive abilities in visual-spatial understanding, short-term and working memory – a component of memory that allows individuals to actively use information in the moment, such as following a conversation, solving a simple calculation, or remembering instructions.
The prize’s panel of international expert judges agreed that the winning solution was a genuine breakthrough technology with revolutionary potential for people living with dementia and their families.
The Longitude Prize on Dementia is funded by Alzheimer’s Society and Innovate UK and is delivered by Challenge Works. It has driven the creation of personalised, technology-based tools that are co-created with people living with dementia, helping them to maintain their independence at home.
In addition, the National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR) funded academics from the Care Policy and Evaluation Centre at LSE to conduct a product evaluation study in the finalist phase.
Dame Wendy Hall, internationally renowned AI expert and chair of the Longitude Committee, said: “CrossSense captures exactly the kind of revolutionary AI the Longitude Prize set out to support. The team’s progress over the past three years has been remarkable – their expertise, co-design approach and focus on personalised AI, built on existing smart glasses hardware, truly set them apart.
“Most importantly, the impact the technology has already had on people living with dementia is worth more than any prize. While only one winner can be chosen, every finalist has developed innovations that will have a positive impact and make life easier for people with dementia and their families. The prize has helped accelerate multiple solutions that will soon be available.”
Professor Fiona Carragher, Chief Policy and Research Officer at Alzheimer’s Society, said: “Rapid advancements in AI will give people affected by early-stage dementia the opportunity to stay safely in their own homes for longer and lead more independent, fulfilled lives.
“The CrossSense smart glasses companion is a prime example of harnessing technology to develop intuitive personal support that complements care given by humans. By anticipating people’s needs as their condition progresses, easing daily living challenges and providing additional reassurance to families, this revolutionary tech will allow people with dementia to maintain their independence for longer within the familiar environment of home.”
Carole Grieg, 70, from Sutton, who was diagnosed with mild Alzheimer’s disease and involved in trialling CrossSense, believes the technology could play an important role in helping people with dementia maintain their independence. She says, “When CrossSense invited me to be involved in developing the glasses, I was incredibly excited.
“I thought it was an amazing concept, with the potential to provide real, reliable support for people like me, helping to compensate for the cognitive skills we gradually lose as dementia progresses. Testing the glasses and seeing how they developed at each stage made me truly realise the difference they could make.”
Since 2022, the £4.4 million global prize has funded and supported the development of 24 different assistive technologies. Each received £80,000 to develop ideas that use AI and machine learning to help people living with dementia remain independent for as long as possible.
Five finalists were announced in 2024, each receiving a further £300,000 to develop their ideas into real-world products. While the finalists have developed very different solutions, they share the common goals of helping people living with dementia to stay in their homes for longer, continue doing fulfilling daily activities, and maintain social interactions.
Throughout the prize, a Lived Experience Advisory Panel (LEAP) facilitated by Alzheimer’s Society, has reviewed innovator designs, ideas and provided insights into how technologies could support and enable independent living for a person with a diagnosis of dementia.
Made up of 11 people living with dementia, carers or former carers, the LEAP’s role is to ensure people with direct experience of the condition were involved in developing each stage of the competition. While not a part of the judging process, LEAP insights were shared with the judges for consideration at each stage of the prize.
The £1 million grand prize will support the winner to make CrossSense available to the public in early 2027, with the future ambition that it would also be used by local authorities, care providers and NHS services such as memory clinics.
