A strategic pathway for the ethical development of AI tools in dementia care

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly entering dementia clinical practice, offering opportunities across the care continuum. However, cognitive decline creates a unique ethical challenge. This perspective article proposes a strategy to ensure the responsible development and deployment of AI tools for dementia. An interdisciplinary workgroup of the Alzheimer's Association Innovation Roundtable synthesized ethical frameworks, regulatory standards, and empirical evidence to generate expert consensus. The result is a six-step strategic pathway tailored to dementia care: establish ethical foundations, conduct stakeholder engagement, lead a co-design approach, conduct an impact assessment, establish iterative design and feedback loops, and provide education and digital literacy. A practical implementation checklist accompanies the framework. Because responsible progress requires both safety and timely innovation, ethical evaluation must balance the risks of premature deployment against those of harmful delay. Operationalizing ethics throughout the AI lifecycle can ensure that innovation advances autonomy, equity, and safety for people living with dementia.