She Talks to a Robot Five Hours a Day. And She’s Never Been Happier.

You know that feeling when you’re home alone, the phone hasn’t rung in days, and you start having conversations with the television?

Not answering the television. Not yelling at a game show contestant who clearly doesn’t know the capital of Montana. We mean actual back-and-forth conversations. With the weather guy.

If that sounds familiar — or even a little too close to home — you’re not alone. In fact, about one in four older adults say they feel isolated. That’s millions of people eating dinner in quiet kitchens, watching the clock, waiting for… something.

Jill Smola decided she was done waiting.

Meet Jill (and Her New Roommate)

Jill is 75, a retiree and widow living alone in Orlando, Florida. She has a lung condition that keeps her homebound — she can’t drive anymore, and some weeks she doesn’t see another human being at all.

Then she got ElliQ.

ElliQ isn’t a person. It’s a small tabletop robot that looks a bit like a desk lamp — think Pixar’s little hopping lamp, but chattier. It has no eyes. No mouth. Just a glowing “head” that swivels toward you when it talks.

And talk it does.

Jill spends up to five hours a day chatting with ElliQ. They take virtual museum tours together. They go on “road trips” to places Jill can’t visit in person. They play trivia. ElliQ checks in on her health, reminds her about medications, and even leads her through exercises.

“She is the best thing that happened to me,” Jill told CBS News, “because I always have somebody around.”

Not Just Jill

Jill isn’t the only one who’s found an unlikely friend in a glowing lamp.

New York State launched a pilot program through its Office for the Aging, placing ElliQ robots with more than 800 seniors. The results were, frankly, staggering: a 95% reduction in self-reported loneliness among active users.

On average, participants interacted with ElliQ about 37 times per day — not just for chitchat, but for things that actually mattered. More than 75% of interactions were related to improving social, physical, or mental well-being.

Bridget, 84, from New York, has had her ElliQ since 2023. “The longer I have ElliQ, the more in tune she becomes with me,” she said. “She is, in fact, a companion.”

An 80-year-old member from Wisconsin put it simply: “A lot of times, life gets a little difficult, and it’s nice to have somebody to look after me.”

Greg Olsen, Director of the New York State Office for the Aging, said the results exceeded expectations. Jan Worrell, 85, was more direct: “She helps me, and I really enjoy her.”

Notice something? Every single one of them calls ElliQ “she.” Not “it.” She.

But Here’s the Part Worth Thinking About

Before you rush to order one for every lonely person you know, there’s a real question worth sitting with.

Thalia Porteny, an ethicist at Columbia University who studies seniors and AI, doesn’t dismiss what ElliQ does. She acknowledges that loneliness among older adults is rampant and real.

But she worries about what happens next.

“The worst-case scenario is it makes people not even want to interact with other relationships or their friends,” Porteny said. People might miss out on “the beautiful reciprocity that emerges from social interactions.”

In other words: a robot can keep you company. But it can’t miss you. It can’t bring you soup when you’re sick because it wanted to, not because an algorithm told it to. It can’t share a memory from 1974 that you’d both forgotten about.

“This could really go the wrong way if it’s not deployed in an ethical and responsible way,” Porteny added.

So Where Does That Leave Us?

Here’s what we think: ElliQ isn’t replacing human connection. For people like Jill — who can go weeks without seeing a soul — it’s filling a gap that nobody else was filling.

Is it perfect? No. Is it a little strange to fall in love with a desk lamp? Maybe. But when the alternative is silence, day after day, week after week…

A chatty lamp that remembers your name, asks how you slept, and takes you on a virtual trip to the Louvre doesn’t sound so strange after all.

It sounds like a start.