Companionship to Mediationship: Rethinking the Role of AI in Informal Older Adult Caregiving

Strong social relationships significantly impact the physical and emotional well-being of older adults and their informal caregivers.However, existing AI caregiving technologies often focus on either older adults or caregivers, overlooking the critical relational dynamics between them.To investigate these dynamics, we conducted a contextual inquiry with six pairs of older adults and their informal caregivers in home settings.Our findings revealed two key relational challenges: older adults experience increasing dependency on caregivers and growing isolation from their broader social networks, while caregivers grapple with emotional tensions in managing older adults' needs and mediating their social interactions.In response, we propose a new role for AI as a mediator between older adults and their extended social networks.Our proposed AI system bridges communication gaps related to modality, presence, and language, thereby addressing the relational needs of older adults while alleviating the caregiving burden.