We believe you have the right to fully understand how artificial intelligence is used in a service that touches the lives of people you love. This page explains everything.
Every conversation is conducted by an AI voice system — not a human agent.
Nearness identifies itself as an AI at the start of every single call.
The AI builds a memory of each client across calls to make conversations more personal.
Your conversations are never used to train public AI models or shared with third parties for commercial purposes.
AI analyses tone and sentiment to identify distress — this is used only to trigger wellbeing alerts.
Nearness will never claim to be human, deny being an AI, or deceive clients about its nature.
Nearness uses a large language model (LLM) combined with a real-time AI voice platform to conduct natural, conversational phone calls. The AI is capable of:
The AI voice used by Nearness is a high-quality synthetic voice — it sounds natural and warm, but it is not a recording of a real person. The name and persona of your Nearness companion can be configured at setup.
When you set up Nearness, you provide information about your loved one — their name, interests, family, and preferences. This is stored in a secure profile that the AI accesses before each call.
Over time, Nearness's AI updates this profile based on what is discussed in calls. For example, if your loved one mentions a new grandchild or a recent holiday, Nearness may ask about it in a future call. This growing memory is what makes Nearness feel increasingly personal over time.
🧠 Memory is controlled by you. You can view, edit, or delete profile information and call notes from your family dashboard at any time.
Nearness's AI is designed with safety guardrails appropriate for serving older and potentially vulnerable adults:
⚠️ AI has limits. Despite our best efforts, AI systems can make mistakes — including occasionally misunderstanding what was said, missing emotional cues, or generating responses that feel off. We monitor for these issues and continuously improve our system. If you notice a problem, please contact us.
We take a conservative approach to AI training:
We will always seek your consent before using personal data for any purpose beyond delivering the Nearness service.
Nearness operates in compliance with Australia's evolving AI governance framework, including:
We support the Australian Government's Voluntary AI Safety Standard principles and are committed to responsible AI deployment. We disclose AI use at every opportunity and never obscure the nature of our service.
We welcome questions and feedback about our AI practices. Transparency is one of our core values.
📧 Email: privacy@nearness.com.au
🌐 Website: nearness.com.au/contact