Tianjin seniors use AI voice terminals to order meals, seek medical advice

Thousands of seniors in Tianjin are using AI voice terminals to order meals, shop, and seek medical advice from home, as the city turns to technology to care for an aging population that mostly lives at home.

Among them is Zhang Weirong, 76, who orders meals from her home in the city's Hexi district with a spoken command. Her terminal, powered by Baidu's Wenxin Yiyan large model, generates a service order for in-person pickup or home delivery. The system is part of a home-based elderly care project rolled out by Baidu Intelligent Cloud and local operator Zhongmin Jukang.

Official civil affairs data shows Tianjin has 3.6 million seniors aged 60 and above, of whom fewer than 1 percent live in nursing homes; the rest rely on home and community care. Baidu has positioned the program as a way to ease staffing shortages in traditional elder services, a commitment founder Robin Li made in talks with Tianjin municipal officials.

According to the operators, the technology sharply raises the number of seniors one caregiver can serve, from 20 to 30 before this year's rollout to between 120 and 150. The voice terminal handles food ordering, shopping, medical consultation, and companionship, while built-in millimeter-wave radars and smart mattresses detect falls and alert staff members and families.

Over 7,000 households have received the user-friendly You'ai Xiaoxin robots with large-font interfaces. In the Xiuyue Road subdistrict, 30 percent of the 22,000 senior residents regularly use the AI gadgets.

Liu Jiayi and Wang Jingxu contributed to this story.