Stockholm is considered to be one of the loneliest citizens on earth with more than 20%,

or as many a quarter of a million, living in unwanted loneliness. This greatly impacts their health with one of the highest rates of depression, early stage-dementia and suicide as a direct consequence.

The brief was to continue to build on Stockholm Exergi’s long-running social sustainability strategy “Together We Make Stockholm Warmer, For Everyone”.

They wanted to create awareness and put unwanted loneliness on the agenda and spark conversations by inviting Stockholmers to share their yet untold life stories, that otherwise would be forgotten.

Millions live in unwanted loneliness, with very little or no interaction with family or friends. Still, many of them have incredible life stories to tell, but no one to share them with.

Many independent scientific studies show that unwanted loneliness is as dangerous as smoking or alcohol, and can rapidly trigger early stage dementia, depression and lead to suicide.

As Stockholm’s #1 energy provider, Exergi has been keeping Stockholmers warm for over 100 years. Now they wanted an initiative to help make Stockholm a little warmer and more socially sustainable.

After two years of development, we launched the patent pending Memory Lane. It’s the world’s first reverse engineered voice assistant that can drive a meaningful conversation – it can ask personal questions and relevant follow-up questions.

Its mission is to improve the well-being of people struggling with the dire consequences of unwanted loneliness, by sharing their amazing stories.

What if a Google Home or Alexa voice assistant could do all the asking instead of the opposite, as it has been until now?

With Memory Lane, we created the world’s first conversational artificial intelligence by reverse engineering a voice assistant. It can drive meaningful conversations and ask personal questions, enabling life stories and memories that otherwise would remain untold forever.

Project Memory Lane also generated the world’s first co-authored books as well as the world's first podcast between man and artificial intelligence. The patent pending Memory Lane solution is at the core a combination of storytelling between artificial intelligence helping humans to tell their life stories and making sure they can be shared to the rest of the world.

As Stockholm’s #1 energy provider, Exergi has been keeping Stockholmers warm for over 100 years. Now they wanted an initiative to help make Stockholm a little warmer and more socially sustainable.

And so the Project Memory was launched, and we asked citizens of the capital of Sweden to share their life stories.

Before the project was launched, we conducted in-depth interviews with leading doctors in the field of elderly care and dementia together with organizations that are active in assisted living and nursing homes in Stockholm.

Stockholm Exergi also conducted factual research on verified independent published research on consequences of unwanted loneliness and isolation both locally and globally. They also interviewed senior citizens.

When the unique Google Home voice assistant was installed, it instantly sparked curious conversations for two few weeks in their assisted living homes. It unraveled stories that had never previously been told.

Throughout the launch of the project, we documented the experience that is now a monthly podcast series together with online films.

The Project Memory Lane software also has a feature that transcribes each conversation in real time that creates real, physical books that is used as part of creating awareness of the project. These books are the world´s first co-authored books between man and artificial intelligence.

The campaign is a social-first activation through Stockholm Exergi’s owned and paid social media channels together with influencers and PR at the core of the campaign. The objective is to spark conversations and put the issue of unwanted loneliness on top of the societal agenda, as well as continuing to contribute to the corporate social sustainability “Together We Make Stockholm Warmer” that Stockholm Exergi has been communicating successfully for many years.

The project was launched 2019 and is an ongoing initiative.

Memory Lane was launched in spring 2019. So far it has resulted in the world’s first podcast series, where our voice assistant has conversations with people that share their life stories and memories. The podcast is found on stockholmexergi.se/memorylane.

These conversations also generated the world’s first books, co-authored by artificial intelligence and the participants of the Memory Lane Project. The books are shared with the participants as well as internally at Stockholm Exergi and externally with customers and partners to create project awareness. They are a manifestation of how we together can make Stockholm a warmer, more socially sustainable and inclusive city.

To reach a broader target and increase the awareness, we also made documentation that has so far resulted in videos and social media assets. This has generated goodwill and PR impact for the project.