Revolutionize Cognitive Health Monitoring with AI

Caring from a Distance

Living in Palo Alto while my 85-year-old grandmother lives alone in a quiet village in Japan, I constantly worried about her cognitive well-being. I couldn’t be there to notice the early signs of memory decline or confusion—and that uncertainty weighed on me. Then I discovered Kinabot.

Now, after each weekly call, I upload our conversation. Kinabot uses advanced AI to analyze her speech—monitoring key cognitive indicators like lexical diversity, memory markers, and emotional tone.

It turns everyday conversations into a window into her cognitive health.

Scientific Evidence

“Participants with cognitive impairment showed lower syntactic complexity and coherence in their speech, and these features declined further over a six-month period.”
— Robin, J., Xu, M., Kaufman, L.D., & Simpson, W. (2021). Frontiers in Digital Health
Read the full paper on PubMed Central

Traditional Alzheimer’s screenings are often costly and invasive. Research shows that subtle changes in speech—like coherence and vocabulary—can reveal early cognitive decline. One study found that a simple 10-minute speech task at home could detect early signs of impairment. This supports Kinabot’s mission to make cognitive health monitoring easy, affordable, and remote.

Our story: Born from Distance, Built with Purpose

Kinabot began with a personal need—one that many of us quietly carry.

As the founder, I live and work in the U.S., while my parents, both over 65, live far away. Like many families separated by distance, I often worry about their well-being—especially their cognitive health. Each time I visit once or twice a year, I wonder:

Are they remembering things clearly? Are they staying mentally sharp? Will anyone notice if something starts to change?

Through reading and research, I discovered that dementia is on the rise globally, and in most cases, it's diagnosed too late. Families often miss the earliest signs until a crisis happens. That realization struck me deeply. I needed a way to check in—not just emotionally, but cognitively—with the people I love.

And yet, in Silicon Valley, while companies are racing to build “smart” conversational robots, very few are asking what we can learn from everyday conversations. In those simple exchanges lie powerful signals—indicators of memory, orientation, language, and thought patterns.

Drawing on my background in AI research and my experience training robots at Indiana University’s AI Lab, I built Kinabot: a tool that listens not just to respond, but to understand. Kinabot assesses cognitive health through natural, daily speech—so you can stay connected to your loved one’s mental wellness, even across oceans.