A London-based startup has won 1 million euros for developing smart glasses with a built-in, AI-powered assistant designed to help people with early-stage dementia preserve the architecture of their daily lives — from routine tasks to personal interactions that might otherwise begin to slip away.
The award, announced March 18, 2026, is part of the Longitude Prize on Dementia, a global competition delivered by Challenge Works to spur breakthroughs in care. The winning system, developed by CrossSense Limited, reflects a broader shift in how dementia is approached: not only as a condition to be treated, but as one to be navigated, with tools that reinforce independence rather than replace it.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, dementia is not a single disease but an umbrella term describing a decline in mental ability severe enough to interfere with daily life, affecting memory, thinking and behavior. Symptoms often worsen over time. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form, affecting an estimated 6.7 million older adults in the United States — a number projected to double by 2060.
“Winning the Longitude Prize on Dementia is a dream come true,” said Szczepan Orlins, CEO of CrossSense Limited. “As a small team with big ambitions, the prize’s support has accelerated CrossSense in ways that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. 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 smart glasses, developed over roughly a decade by a team of AI engineers, designers, psychologists and neurologists, are built around an adaptive assistant named Wispy. Designed to learn from its wearer, the system gradually maps routines and preferences, offering subtle, conversational prompts that evolve alongside the progression of the disease.
In practice, that can mean transforming a familiar environment into a sequence of recognizable cues. In a kitchen, for instance, a kettle, mug and spoon become linked steps in a guided process, helping a user move through making a cup of tea or completing another everyday task without losing track midway. The glasses are prescription-ready as well.
CrossSense, a London-based social enterprise, trained the system on dozens of such activities — getting dressed, managing household chores, interacting with loved ones — with the aim of reinforcing memory rather than substituting for it. The goal, developers say, is to provide just enough structure for users to continue making their own decisions, even as recall becomes less reliable.
Early testing, conducted in collaboration with the University of Sussex and a panel of people affected by dementia, suggests the approach may offer measurable benefits. Some users showed improvements in naming objects and in cognitive functions such as visual-spatial awareness and working memory, the mental process that allows a person to follow conversations or retain instructions in real time.
“The system is designed to provide cognitive stimulation and was trained with dozens of everyday activities, including managing household chores safely and making a cup of tea,” Nesta Challenge Works said in a statement. “Working with a panel of people affected by dementia and expert judges, the winning solution was agreed to be a genuine breakthrough technology with revolutionary potential for people living with dementia and their families. Internationally renowned AI expert and chair of the Longitude Committee, Dame Wendy Hall, noted that CrossSense captures exactly the kind of revolutionary AI the Longitude Prize set out to support, with the team’s co-design approach and focus on personalized AI setting them truly apart.”
“Rapid advancements in AI will give people affected by early-stage dementia the opportunity to stay safely in their own homes for longer and lead more independent, fulfilled lives,” said Professor Fiona Carragher, chief policy and research officer at Alzheimer’s Society. “The CrossSense smart glasses companion is a prime example of harnessing technology to develop intuitive personal support that complements care given by humans. By anticipating people’s needs as their condition progresses, easing daily living challenges and providing additional reassurance to families, this revolutionary tech will allow people with dementia to maintain their independence for longer within the familiar environment of home.”
Dementia remains a progressive condition with no cure, and its global impact is expanding rapidly. About 1 million people in the United Kingdom are currently living with dementia, a figure expected to rise to 1.4 million by 2040. Worldwide, cases are projected to increase from an estimated 57 million in 2019 to more than 150 million by 2050.
The Longitude Prize on Dementia, funded by Alzheimer’s Society and Innovate UK, was launched in 2022 to accelerate solutions that extend independence and improve quality of life. The 4.4 million euro initiative has supported 24 teams developing artificial intelligence and machine learning tools, with five finalists each receiving 300,000 pounds in 2024 to advance their work.
Those finalists represented a range of approaches, from predictive fall-detection smartwatches to home-based systems that use sensors and wearable devices to guide users through daily routines. Throughout the competition, an international advisory panel composed of people living with dementia and current and former caregivers provided feedback on designs, helping ensure that solutions remained grounded in lived experience.
Challenge Works, which administers the prize, describes its role as fostering innovation through competition, focusing on global challenges in health, climate and social inclusion. The Board of Longitude, which supports the initiative, traces its origins to an 18th-century effort to solve navigation at sea.
