Social isolation is a well-established and modifiable risk factor for cognitive decline and dementia. The completed I-CONECT trial (NCT02871921) showed that frequent, one-to-one, semi-structured conversational engagement delivered remotely by trained human interviewers improved cognitive outcomes among socially isolated older adults with mild cognitive impairment. Two limitations have constrained translating that approach into a scalable preventive intervention: its reliance on trained human interviewers limits scalability, and the behavioral mechanisms responsible for its cognitive benefits remain incompletely understood.
AI-CONECT addresses both limitations by delivering the conversational intervention through a conversational artificial intelligence (AI) voice chatbot rather than a human interviewer, and by testing a hypothesized behavioral mechanism: that the intervention increases participants' social self-efficacy (confidence in their ability to engage socially), which in turn increases real-world social engagement.
