New features for ElliQ include tracking goals and health care plans. | Credit: Intuition Robotics
Intuition Robotics is moving beyond simple user prompts to create empathetic, proactive artificial intelligence that builds meaningful relationships with people. It designed its ElliQ companion robot to help older adults live healthier and more connected lives at home.
The Ramat Gan, Israel-based company has incorporated the latest AI advances to enable ElliQ to interact naturally with users and make measurable improvements in their physical and emotional health. Intuition Robotics has demonstrated greater engagement with these advances, Dor Skuler, Intuition CEO, told The Robot Report.
By using a proprietary “relationship orchestrator” that mimics the theory of mind, ElliQ now integrates multiple large language models (LLMs) and generative AI to deliver more contextual and ongoing conversations. These updated capabilities allow the system to take a multimodal approach—using speech, body language, and lights—to proactively initiate engagement based on a user’s unique goals and “memory net,” said Skuler.
Whether encouraging cognitive training or facilitating social connectedness, ElliQ’s advanced decision-making algorithms and contextual memory personalize the device. It can significantly reducing loneliness and driving positive health outcomes, said Intiution Robotics.
The company said it has shifted from pre-programmed conversational routines to building a proactive “health agent” builds a human-robot relationship (HRR) and functions as a dedicated partner in longevity.
“The best health care providers, which focus on value-based care, take pride in having touch points once a month with their patients, which is a lot like if your doctor or a nurse calls to see how you’re doing,” noted Skuler. “We do it 45 times a day.“
This deep connection allows ElliQ to move beyond the “white coat syndrome,” where patients might be hesitant to share health struggles with doctors, he added. This fosters a level of trust where users view the device as something between a therapist and a spouse.
Ninety-three percent of ElliQ users said it helps reduce their loneliness, 96% said ElliQ improves their overall health and wellness, and 85% feel more connected to the outside world, found Intuition Robotics in a recent survey.
ElliQ shows proactive care as a new frontier for health
With its latest updates, ElliQ is now equipped to manage clinical-grade health goals and provide real-time insights that were previously impossible to capture at home, asserted Intuition Robotics:
- A “check engine light” for health: Much like a vehicle’s warning system, ElliQ monitors subtle shifts in sleep, mood, and daily activity. It doesn’t diagnose, but it can alert clinicians and family members when a “yellow light” appears, allowing for early intervention before a health crisis occurs.
- Automated IADL scoring: Through natural conversation — such as asking about a trip to the market — ElliQ can calculate Independent Activities of Daily Living (IADL) scores. This helps track an individual’s independence curve and can be shared with Medicaid or long-term care providers.
- Gap closures and wellness coaching: ElliQ acts as a “digital granddaughter,” gently nudging users to complete annual wellness visits or screenings, explained Skuler. In its wellness coach role, the AI robot has achieved over 90% retention in its first month, with 60% of users meeting or exceeding their health goals.
- AI-powered fall assessments: With its camera and gamification, ElliQ can now perform balance and fall-risk assessments, creating a proactive safety net for those living alone.
Skuler and his team have worked hard, through field trials, to improve the interaction of EllIQ using the data from real user interactions.
“We’ve always prided ourselves that ElliQ has an ethical stance, not just on privacy and so on, but also on how she represents herself to the user,” said Skuler. “We want her not to ever claim she’s human and to always reinforce the fact that she’s an AI.”
Through natural conversation, ElliQ calculates IADL scores. | Credit: Intuition Robotics
How might the tabletop robot interact with other embodied AI devices or humanoid robots in the future?
“For robots really to be woven into our daily lives, there needs to be a relationship manager of sorts on the software layer,” Skuler replied. “We need to manage that relationship. They need to have awareness of what’s happening; they need to have etiquette.”
He went on to say, “They need to have a certain level of autonomy and discuss the goals they’re trying to optimize for. They need to understand that I’m arguing with my wife right now, and it [the robot] should make itself scarce, or it should understand that this is an opportune moment to actually intervene and ask us some questions about cleaning the dishes.”
“If we’re going to live with these devices, then they need to be able to navigate relationships and build a relationship with us,” added Skuler. “I think we are one of the first companies that are attempting to figure this stuff out.”
Intuition Robotics sets safety, ethical guardrails
Intuition Robotics puts user safety at the center of all of its design decisions, according to Skuler. The human-robot interaction with ElliQ and the user never pretends that the system other than AI or alive.
In addition, the company has a goal of increasing ElliQ’s autonomy over time. Intuition Robotics has implemented a three-layer safety architecture in ElliQ to prevent AI “hallucinations” and ensure ethical interactions:
- Commercial filters: It uses the native guardrails of industry-leading LLMs.
- Proprietary ethics model: A custom layer intercepts medical advice and monitors for sensitive topics such as mental health crises, providing scripted, legally approved resources when necessary.
- Heuristic failsafes: A final “low-tech” layer of hard-coded rules ensures that ElliQ maintains her benevolent, supportive persona but is still understood to be an AI.
Intuition Robotics said its engineers have focused on a software stack that manages the “relationship space” rather than physical dexterity. While robotics companies often focus on the mechanical challenges of movement, Intuition Robotics has developed HRR — an AI that understands social etiquette and recognizes when to intervene or remain quiet.
The company asserted that it is committed to user agency. Unlike medical devices that may feel intrusive, ElliQ operates through a process of negotiation, said Skuler.
Even when goals are recommended by clinicians or family members, they are not imposed on the user. Instead, the AI acts as a partner that requires the user’s consent to lock in a goal, ensuring that the older adult remains the decision-maker in their own care. By balancing AI autonomy with an opt-in philosophy, Intuition Robotics said it has created a system where trust is a central metric, positioned to serve as a bridge to independence.
The company is demonstrating ElliQ this week at CES 2026 at the Venetian, Booth 54732.
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