During the 2026 USC Age Tech Symposium, presenters discussed how advances in technology, including new artificial intelligence models and biomedical innovation, can transform aging research, care delivery, and health systems – but must be deployed responsibly, effectively, and at scale.
Hosted at the Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center on April 17, the daylong program brought together faculty from throughout USC, including the Leonard Davis School of Gerontology and the Viterbi School of Engineering, and other researchers, clinicians, and industry leaders. The event, now in its third year, was sponsored by Sabra Health Care REIT and the Arnold M. Whitman Aging and Technology Initiative Fund.
In opening remarks, USC Leonard Davis School Dean Pinchas Cohen framed the discussion around a growing demographic imbalance: a rapidly aging population alongside a shrinking caregiver workforce. AI and robotics will be essential to maintaining independence, improving longevity and health outcomes, and promoting social and cognitive wellness, and there are countless opportunities for innovation, he said.
“Using AI can help us move from reacting to emergencies to preventing them,” Cohen said. “It is a fantastic time to be in this field.”
USC Senior Vice President for Health Affairs Steven Shapiro noted that using AI wisely and taking advantage of USC’s strengths can help reshape the health care market and make progress in research more quickly than ever. In particular, “aging is an area where we have a unique advantage and the right to win,” he said.
Gaurav Sukhatme, executive vice dean of the Viterbi School of Engineering and director of the USC School for Advanced Computing, emphasized a longstanding technology principle that is especially pertinent to age tech: the most impactful technologies are those that become “indistinguishable from everyday life.” The idea of AI embedded seamlessly into health care, senior living, and other aspects of daily life served as a throughline across sessions.
Reinventing health care with AI assistance
Keynote speaker and USC Associate Senior Vice President of Health Innovation Aman Mahajan delivered a blunt assessment of the health care system, describing it as increasingly unsustainable due to rising costs, workforce shortages and inefficiencies. AI, he said, represents the most viable path forward, but not in the form of larger or more complex models alone.
Instead, Mahajan pointed to practical applications already gaining traction: earlier disease detection, improved coordination across providers, and reduced administrative burden. He noted that AI adoption is accelerating rapidly, with a majority of physicians now using some form of AI in practice, and investment in health care AI comprising a significant share of industry funding.
“It’s not that everything is done with AI, but that decision-making is done closer to the point of care,” Mahajan said. “What would not change is clinical accountability. … Patients don’t trust AI; they trust clinicians using AI.”
A second keynote by Prenuvo CEO Andrew Lacy reinforced the importance of early detection. He highlighted whole-body MRI combined with AI analysis as a way to identify disease years earlier than traditional methods, an approach that could significantly reduce costs tied to late-stage diagnoses and shift health care toward prevention.
“Early detection will force radical changes to health care, and that’s how medicine moves forward,” Lacy said.
Albert “Skip” Rizzo, director for Medical Virtual Reality at USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies and a joint appointee of the USC Leonard Davis School and USC Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, described how virtual human systems developed at ICT are being used to expand access to care, particularly for populations that do not engage with traditional mental health services, while maintaining clinician oversight. “This is not sci-fi anymore; we can build credible, safe and ethically deliverable applications” for delivering outreach and coaching via interactive virtual humans, he said.
In a discussion of robotics and assistive systems, Distinguished Professor Maja Mataric of USC Viterbi highlighted the growing role of socially assistive robotics in aging, emphasizing that AI systems must be designed to support human needs rather than replace human care. She noted that while robots are improving in capability, their effectiveness depends on understanding real human behavior and using social interaction, rather than technology alone, to drive meaningful changes in health behavior.
AI-accelerated research and biotech
Afternoon sessions shifted toward research and applications, with multiple USC Leonard Davis School faculty presenting on aging biology and disease detection. USC Leonard Davis faculty members Associate Professor Andrei Irimia, Professor Dan Nation and Professor Mara Mather discussed how AI and deep learning are being used to identify early indicators of Alzheimer’s disease and model brain aging trajectories. These efforts aim to detect neurodegenerative conditions years before clinical symptoms appear, whether via noninvasive MRI imaging or via wearables to track biomarkers of dementia risk, and hopefully enable earlier intervention.
Other faculty members shared how tech is powering investigation into potential molecular and genetic drivers of aging and related treatments. Remo Rohs, professor and chair of the Department of Quantitative and Computational Biology at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, described how using generative AI to predict protein structures has dramatically sped up the drug discovery and drug design processes.
USC Leonard Davis Associate Professor Berenice Benayoun discussed her lab’s work developing a biological “clock” to measure ovarian aging at the cellular level, which could pave the way to predicting age at menopause. The long-term goal is to develop treatments that improve and lengthen ovarian function and delay the significant increase in risk for age-related disease that accompanies menopause, she said.
USC Viterbi Professor of Biomedical Engineering Peter Yingxiao Wang discussed emerging technology to precisely control gene and cell therapies targeting aging processes. His work highlighted how cutting-edge CAR T-cell therapy activated by targeted ultrasound could enable noninvasive, highly tailored interventions, pointing toward new possibilities for slowing or modifying the biological mechanisms of aging.
Real-world applications
Sessions on startups and care delivery highlighted how research advances are being translated into practice. Company leaders from cardiac rehabilitation platform Movn Health, Program of All-Inclusive Care for Elderly (PACE) provider Seen Health, and health care navigation service EZ Health described AI-enabled models that extend care into the home, reduce barriers to access, and personalize treatment through continuous monitoring and coaching.
The theme of system integration continued in an afternoon panel on improving care delivery through AI and gerontology. Notably, all panelists were alumni of the USC Leonard Davis School: Master of Science in Gerontology alumna Larissa Stepanians, chief operating officer at Los Angeles Jewish Health; Bachelor of Science in Gerontology alumna Lucy Janoyan, chief operating and strategy officer at Biography Health; and Dorice Redman, who graduated in 2024 as the first-ever recipient of the school’s Master of Science in Applied Technology and Aging degree.
Redman, principal for operations and age tech at the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing and Care, shared best practices for selecting and implementing tech solutions in senior living. Given the growing imbalance between an aging population and a smaller number of caregivers, “technology is really the only viable solution for meeting needs in a human-centered and quality way,” she said.
