Panasonic and Anthropic Unveil AI-Powered Family Wellness Coach 'Umi' at CES 2025

Anthropic's Claude and Panasonic team up to improve family time

CES 2025 Read and watch our complete CES coverage here Updated less than 0 just now ago Panasonic and Anthropic are teaming up to release an AI-enhanced family wellness coaching app called Umi, the electronics manufacturer announced during CES 2025. According to reports, Umi is designed to help family members "care, coordinate, and connect" with one another as well as help the family as a whole set goals, like spending mealtime together or being more physically active, create routines, and manage communal tasks. Users set these goals through the app's natural language voice interface. Recommended Videos Panasonic is reportedly aiming the app toward families of all ages. The company was quick to point out during its CES demo on Tuesday that Umi could easily be used to help keep caregivers informed of the habits and comings and goings of elderly family members. Claude will not be on its own in recommending advice as Panasonic plans to incorporate a wide range of wellness experts to help users establish and maintain healthy habits and routines. Umi is slated for release in the U.S. later in 2025. Panasonic is making the app available to other members of its Panasonic Well's Partner Collective, including Aaptiv, Precision Nutrition, SleepScore Labs, Addition Wealth, BlueApron, and Calm, so we could soon see its AI capabilities sprouting up in related products as well. The electronics company is also planning to integrate Claude into its other customer-facing systems like customer service, sales, and marketing. Panasonic also introduced its new "Panasonic Go" initiative, which will fast-track "AI-driven innovation" within the company. The firm expects 30% of its revenue to come from "AI-driven hardware, software, and solution businesses" by 2030.

Panasonic unveils an AI-powered wellness coach, powered by Anthropic's Claude, at CES 2025 | TechCrunch

At CES 2025 in Las Vegas, Panasonic unveiled its upcoming digital assistant, Umi, which offers families a personalized, AI-powered wellness coach. Created in partnership with Anthropic, Umi uses the Claude AI model to help families "care, coordinate, and connect" with each other, the company said. More specifically, this involves an AI assistant that focuses on helping families create goals, like spending more time together or being more active, through an interactive interface, which also allows users to voice chat with Umi. In a demo of Umi during the company's CES keynote address on Tuesday, Umi was available in a mobile app where families could group chat with the AI, as well as set goals, create routines, manage tasks, and more. The app could also be useful for caregivers of aging parents who want to keep up with how those older adults in their families doing, even if they're not always physically together, Panasonic pointed out. (The company is working with AARP on this aspect of the Umi platform.) The AI coach, which is due to launch in the U.S. in 2025, will additionally integrate with a community of experts who will help people build healthy habits and create wellness routines. Panasonic is working with other wellness-focused partners including Aaptiv, Precision Nutrition, SleepScore Labs, Addition Wealth, BlueApron, Calm, and more. These brands, a part of Panasonic Well's Partner Collective, will be working with Umi and other future Panasonic Well businesses, the comapny said. Meanwhile, the partnership between Anthropic and Panasonic not only provides access to the Claude AI for use in Panasonic's consumer products, it also brings Claude to Panasonic's workforce. The comapny said it will integrate Claude as a "strategic asset" with a focus on improving results in areas like customer service, sales, marketing, and coding.

Panasonic reveals AI family well-being coach at CES

American family life has become so challenging that U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an advisory last year, warning that the stressors parents experience take too great of a toll on their mental health and well-being. Enter Umi, a digital family well-being coach designed by Panasonic Well presented on Tuesday at CES, also known as the Consumer Electronics Show, in Las Vegas. Yoky Matsuoka, CEO of Panasonic Well, told Mashable that Umi aims to improve family wellness with a unique suite of coaching services. Imagine a parent who wants to make positive changes, like getting more sleep, eating healthier, or spending more time together as a family, but struggle with brainstorming and executing effective solutions. Matsuoka said that's where Umi, scheduled to launch later this year, can step in. The conversational AI agent will not only make suggestions, based on the user's specific circumstances, but also offer referrals to the brand's partners, which include the meditation app Calm and the health coaching platform YourCoach. Umi will also help users create "achievable" goals paired with a daily plan and metrics. "We wanted to build healthy habits through behavior change, to connect those, and make those things into routines," Matsuoka said. For example, the parent who wants to do less short-order cooking for a child with selective eating tendencies could ask Umi for help, and the agent might respond with a plan to introduce a new food to that child once a month. But Umi is also meant for multi-generational use, since so many parents are taking care of their aging parents, too. A parent who's also caring for an elder could ask Umi for help with coordinating schedules, finding specific healthcare services, and dealing with burnout. The aging parent could also chat with Umi about their needs. Umi, however, is not designed to offer medical advice. When relevant, the platform can restrict user functions and share medical and crisis resources when necessary. A parent whose child is experiencing a mental health crisis, for example, will be directed to seek care immediately. Umi also has a built-in safety check identifying violent language. While Umi can perform certain administrative tasks relevant to helping users set and achieve their wellness goals, it's not a digital personal assistant. Panasonic's Well division has a product for that called Yohana, which can do things like order Halloween costumes, hire a handyman, find a moving company, and research hotels. Matsuoka, who also oversees Yohana, wants parents to feel less overwhelmed. The name Umi means sea in Japanese, and Matsuoka liked the feelings of calmness and centering the word evoked. Though Umi uses more than one large language model for its AI, Matsuoka specifically touts the brand's partnership with Anthropic. She noted that the LLM excelled at some of Umi's core tasks, and that she valued what she described as the company's commitment to ethical AI. While Umi will collect highly valuable data from families about their interests, routines, and preferences, including from teens and younger users who have permission to interact with the agent, Matsuoka said that information will not be sold to third-parties. Umi also isn't trained on user data but instead fake data inspired by what real users have shared with the app so far. When Umi launches to the public in mid-2025, it will be available via an app, then likely on desktop. Umi's pricing isn't available yet, but Matsuoka said the product's cost will be "accessible" to as many people as possible. "This problem is not a problem of wealthy people, this is a problem of every family out there," she said.