ESTsoft (CEO Chung Sang-won), a company specializing in AI services, announced on the 29th that it has converted 36 senior centers in Gimhae into 'Smart Senior Centers' using AI humans, and held an opening ceremony with Gimhae City in January.
With this, ESTsoft's AI human service has begun to be used in earnest in the senior care market, strengthening its potential to expand into a wider range of everyday settings. The company recently released its conversational AI human service 'Perso Live' on its website, making AI humans available on web and mobile so that anyone can try them in daily life.
The project is part of the 'Smart Senior Center' initiative Gimhae City has been pursuing since last year to build a sustainable elder welfare environment, and forms part of the Smart Village rollout and expansion program run by the Ministry of Science and ICT.
In June last year, ESTsoft was selected in the KRW 1 billion public tender for the project and has since worked to improve senior center environments using its AI human service. As a result, ESTsoft led the digitalization of 36 senior centers in Gimhae and completed the Smart Senior Center project successfully.
Going forward, ESTsoft plans to pursue the Gimhae project with the goal of adding 50 Smart Senior Centers each year. Gimhae City has 566 senior centers in total. With demand for senior center upgrades rising sharply, ESTsoft plans to draw on the expertise gained here to expand the Smart Senior Center project nationwide. According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare's 2023 survey of elder welfare facilities, some 68,000 senior centers operate across the country.
The company is also moving into overseas markets in earnest. It plans first to accelerate its entry into Japan's silver industry, which is larger than Korea's. To that end it recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Spiral.AI, a Japanese LLM application service company, to develop a companionship service for seniors. Spiral.AI has partnerships with nursing operators that provide care, nursing and health promotion services.
Older adults visiting Gimhae's 'Smart Senior Centers' can now experience high-quality health management and leisure programs through a range of services built around ESTsoft's AI humans. These include ▲'Senior TV', where AI humans of singer Tae Jin-Ah and '6 O'Clock My Hometown' reporter Kim Na Yun deliver emotional, cognitive and behavioral education pitched to older adults, and ▲'Smart Healthcare', which supports health management through body temperature, blood pressure, blood glucose and body composition tests guided by AI announcer Park Eun-bo.
'Senior TV' features content produced with Yonsei University's Lifetime Sports Laboratory, an active research group in senior care, while 'Smart Healthcare', which began a pilot in November last year, is currently providing health management services to more than 900 members. In future the company plans to assign health coordinators to follow up with and counsel older adults showing warning signs.
A 'live welfare center broadcast' service also connects the senior welfare center's live studio with all 36 'Smart Senior Centers' in real time. The service will be used actively to close care gaps for older adults who find it difficult to visit the welfare center.
Byun Kye-pung, Director of ESTsoft's AI Business Division, said: "We want to use AI technology to address social problems arising from an aging population and income inequality," adding, "We will lead the way in closing care gaps and improving quality of life for older adults through senior care services built on AI humans."
The project was carried out as a consortium with Spire Technology, a company specializing in 5G network quality measurement solutions and IoT-based solutions and applications.