Investigation and Analysis of the Age-Friendly Dilemma of Smart Elderly Care Services under AI Empowerment

Against the backdrop of population aging and the widespread adoption of digital technologies, artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly being integrated into home- and community-based eldercare. However, many older adults continue to face a digital divide, while smart eldercare products often provide only superficial age-friendly adaptations and fail to match users' needs. This study examines older residents of urban communities and their family members. Drawing on a literature review, a questionnaire survey, and semi-structured interviews, it investigates the development of AI-enabled smart eldercare services and the difficulties older adults encounter when using smart devices and related services. Informed by digital divide theory, active aging theory, and supply-and-demand matching theory, the study analyzes the factors underlying these difficulties and proposes a smart eldercare service model that uses age-friendly short videos as a delivery medium and intergenerational collaboration as its core mechanism. It further develops operational strategies across six dimensions: content, target groups, channels, technology, implementation, and operations. Survey findings are used to assess the model's feasibility. The proposed approach offers communities and social organizations a low-cost, practical framework for more inclusive smart eldercare services, with the aim of narrowing the digital divide and supporting active aging.