AI Disclosure

1. What the AI does

Zika Care uses a real-time speech model to hold conversations on the telephone, and language models to understand requests, prepare family digests and carry out errands. People at Zika Care design the rules, review safety-critical events and handle anything that needs a human, such as a safeguarding referral.

2. It always identifies itself

• On the first call, it says plainly that it is an automated service, and who arranged it.
• Whenever anyone asks whether it’s a person, it answers honestly and warmly, without evasion.
• When it telephones a shop, clinic or driver for someone, it says it’s an automated service calling on their behalf, every time.
• This applies the same way to everyone, whatever their memory or understanding.

3. What it will never do

• Pretend to be a real person, or speak as a relative.
• Ask for a card number, PIN, password or one-time code.
• Diagnose, give medical, legal or financial advice, or interpret test results.
• Break bad news, such as a death or a diagnosis. That’s for people.
• Act on a guess about what someone said without them confirming it.
• Pass on a sentence as something the person said when they hadn’t confirmed it.

4. Voices

Each person has one voice for Zika Care, chosen when they join and kept the same, because it becomes a familiar presence. We use provider voices and never clone a family member’s or anyone else’s voice — not as a feature, not as an experiment, not as an option. If a provider ever retires a voice, we’ll tell the person and their family in advance, on a call, and never change it silently.

5. Training and data

We only work with AI providers that contractually exclude training their models on the older person’s audio or words. Where that exclusion isn’t available, we don’t offer the service in that market. See our Privacy Policy.

6. How this website's examples were made

The four calls were written from our product specification and rendered with a text-to-speech model, one line at a time, then passed through a simulated telephone line with synthesised background sounds. The people are fictional. Every voice is designed from a written description rather than copied from anyone. The renderer checked each call against three of the product’s rules and would have failed if any were broken: letting the person finish, never talking over them, and the person — not Zika — ending the call.

The portraits are AI-generated images of the same fictional people.

7. Questions or concerns

Write to safety@zika.care.