The Longitude Prize on Dementia has awarded the £1m grand prize to CrossSense, a personalised AI-powered assistant for smart glasses that identifies everyday objects and guides people living with early-stage dementia through daily activities.
The smart glasses capture the environment of the person living with dementia, and the AI interprets that information to help the user do the things that define independence.
By asking gentle prompts, CrossSense’s AI companion understands and learns a person’s unique way of doing things, adapting to each user’s needs as their dementia progresses.
Szczepan Orlins, CEO, CrossSense Ltd, commented: “The technology is designed to support daily living, integrating multiple senses to simplify essential tasks.
“We’re grateful to the people living with dementia and their families who helped shape it. This win brings us closer to making CrossSense available to the public within the next year.”
The importance of the Longitude Prize on Dementia
Dementia is a progressive condition, and there is currently no cure. Around one million people in the UK are living with dementia, and this number is projected to rise to 1.4 million by 2040.
The number of people worldwide living with dementia is projected to rise significantly from approximately 57 million in 2019 to over 150 million by 2050.
The Longitude Prize on Dementia is funded by Alzheimer’s Society and Innovate UK and is delivered by Challenge Works.
It has driven the creation of personalised, technology-based tools co-created with people living with dementia, helping them maintain their independence at home.
“Innovate UK has been a proud supporter of the Longitude Prize since its launch in 2014 and has partnered with many businesses working in the dementia space, including CrossSense,” explained Dr Stella Peace, Managing Director at Innovate UK.
“By backing pioneering companies, Innovate UK is helping bring practical, life-enhancing solutions into people’s everyday lives, while driving growth.”
Helping individuals with dementia carry out daily tasks
The CrossSense team trained the technology with dozens of everyday activities, including getting dressed, managing household chores safely, making a cup of tea, and interacting with loved ones.
The AI companion asks helpful questions and offers prompts, so the user makes their own choices and talks through what to do when they can’t remember a particular step in a process.
The AI companion uses smart glasses to provide cognitive stimulation, encouraging people to think, talk, and imagine, so that individuals continue to see the relationships between things.
This helps to maintain neural connections, slow cognitive decline in early-stage dementia, and improve quality of life.
Smart glasses innovation showed improvements in abilities
Working with the University of Sussex and a panel of people affected by dementia, the team observed improvements in some users’ ability to name objects and in other cognitive abilities, including visual-spatial understanding, short-term memory, and working memory.
The prize’s panel of international expert judges agreed that the smart glasses solution was a genuine breakthrough technology with revolutionary potential for people living with dementia and their families.
Helping individuals with dementia maintain their independence
Carole Grieg, 70, from Sutton, left her career in high street banking seven years ago to support people living with dementia, working as a companion to individuals with the condition.
After several fulfilling years helping others, Carole herself was diagnosed with mild Alzheimer’s disease.
Carole has been involved in trialling CrossSense, the winner of the Longitude Prize on Dementia, during its development, and believes the technology could play an important role in helping people with dementia maintain their independence.
Speaking on her involvement in developing the smart glasses, Carole said: “When CrossSense invited me to be involved in developing the smart glasses, I was incredibly excited.
“I thought it was an amazing concept, with the potential to provide real, reliable support for people like me, helping to compensate for the cognitive skills we gradually lose as dementia progresses. Testing the glasses and seeing how they developed at each stage made me truly realise the difference they could make.”
Making sure those with direct experiences are involved in the process
Throughout the prize, a Lived Experience Advisory Panel (LEAP), facilitated by Alzheimer’s Society, has reviewed innovator designs and ideas and provided insights into how technologies could support and enable independent living for a person with dementia.
Made up of 11 people living with dementia, carers, or former carers, LEAP’s role is to ensure that people with direct experience of the condition are involved in developing each stage of the competition. While not a part of the judging process, LEAP insights were shared with the judges for consideration at each stage of the prize.
The £1m grand prize will support the winner in making CrossSense available to the public in early 2027, with the ambition that it will also be used by local authorities, care providers, and NHS services such as memory clinics.
Team Health Accessible
Health & Wellness Editorial Team
HealthAccessible editorial team delivers trusted, accessible, and evidence-based health information for everyone.
