Cambridge, UK – September 21 2025 – On World Alzheimer’s Day, Cambridge Consultants (CC), the deep tech powerhouse of Capgemini, and UK charity, Music for my Mind (MFMM), aim to bring potential life-changing benefit of music for people living with memory loss or dementia to a wider audience using a transformative AI Playlist Maker.
MFMM’s existing Playlist Maker is already in use by more than 1,000 families. It is a free-to-use web app, launched following a research project that began in 2016. Its playlists, based on users’ formative teenage years, have been reported to provide transformative benefits for people living with memory loss or dementia, with 90% of respondents reporting a positive mood boost and 77% reporting reduced anxiety, according to MFMM’s internal survey data. The playlists help by triggering memories, improving mood, reducing anxiety, and strengthening connections with loved ones.
However, MFMM faced a monumental scaling challenge. Following its existing practice of using trained service providers to observe music listening sessions that take one hour for each person with dementia, it would take more than a century to reach the million people currently living with dementia in the UK. To tackle this, MFMM approached Cambridge Consultants to explore how advances in AI, data science and human-centric design could help address its scaling challenge.
“We recognised that using AI to replicate the work that trained observers currently do means that we could potentially deploy this as an app that care partners could use all over the world. That’s where Cambridge Consultants came in.”
Cambridge Consultants helps unlock scale
CC analysed MFMM’s dataset listener sessions, using an AI system that integrates advanced techniques to detect subtle behavioral cues – such as facial expressions and body language – that might indicate how a person is responding to music, even when they can no longer express preferences verbally. CC built a robust data processing pipeline and developed a new AI-powered application that streamlined the charity’s process of collecting, analysing, and refining playlist feedback.
“By combining cutting-edge AI with MFMM’s expertise in using personalised music playlists, we’re helping to scale something profoundly personal – restoring moments of connection, dignity, and joy to people living with memory loss or dementia. This groundbreaking work has helped illuminate a path forward, allowing for systematic and decisive steps to be taken to improve the dataset, which will in turn result in more accurate AI models that MFMM can deploy.”
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The global Dementia challenge
Dementia is one of the greatest health challenges of our time, affecting nearly one million people in the UK and 55 million globally. This number is expected to rise sharply in the coming decades. The annual cost of dementia to the UK economy alone already stands at £42 billion and is projected to exceed £90 billion by 2040. Globally, that figure could reach $2 trillion by 2030.
Real people, real impact
For Jean, a care home resident living with advanced dementia, a personalised playlist unlocked a long-forgotten connection to her husband. A single Perry Como song, which they used to listen to on car journeys together, prompted her to hum along, smile, and hold her husband’s hand, looking into his eyes and saying “You haven’t lost me, I’m still here and I love you.”
Care staff have reported that personalised music sessions lead to easier provision of personal care, calmer mealtimes, more meaningful family visits – particularly intergenerational – and more frequent moments of connection, highlighting the real-world benefits of bringing music as part of dementia care to scale.
A scalable, evidence-based future
Music for my Mind’s free Playlist Maker, available here, is already in use by more than 1,000 families, with 90% of respondents reporting a positive mood boost and 77% reporting reduced anxiety. With the integration of AI, this tool will evolve into an even more powerful, personalised experience, bringing scientifically informed, responsive playlists to care homes, hospitals, and families across the UK.
Dimana Georgieva, Programme Manager at Music for my Mind, added: “We know from our research and the families we’ve supported that meaningful music can transform the daily lives of people living with dementia and those around them – calming anxiety, unlocking memories, and creating moments of happiness. With Cambridge Consultants, we’re building an AI-powered solution that means we can reach more people, faster, and with greater personalisation than ever before. This is the future of person-centred care, powered by technology.”
About Music for my Mind (reg. charity no. 1167246)
We all have soundtracks to our lives; music touches so much of life that a particular song can bring back treasured memories or clear visions of the past.
Founded in 2016 by Professor Keith McAdam, Music for my Mind seeks to improve the quality of life and well-being of people living with dementia, by creating and delivering to them familiar music from the ‘reminiscence bump’ of their teenage years.
The charity uses technology to make personalised playlists available for people living with dementia (even when they cannot recall their favourite songs) in a user-friendly and affordable way. MFMM uses research (reviewed and given favourable opinion by the Health Research Authority, London Camberwell St Giles Research Ethics Committee) to gather evidence on the benefits of personalised playlists, to influence dementia care practice.
More information about Music for my Mind’s innovative work and research can be found at: https://musicformymind.com/.
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About Cambridge Consultants
Cambridge Consultants (CC) is the deep tech powerhouse of the Capgemini Group. Deep tech is a mindset, a bold strategy that harnesses radical science and engineering to achieve things no-one else can. It delivers transformative business value and growth for our clients, who gain defendable commercial and operational advantage from new-to-the-world products, services and processes that they own. We overcome the ultimate business challenge: turning something that doesn’t yet exist into a reality. Our advice is built on practice, with over 750 scientists, engineers, designers and consultants working globally across more than 20,000 sq. m of state-of-the-art R&D facilities. As part of Capgemini Invent, CC is backed by 340,000+ Capgemini team members in more than 50 countries.
About Capgemini
Capgemini is a global business and technology transformation partner, helping organizations to accelerate their dual transition to a digital and sustainable world, while creating tangible impact for enterprises and society. It is a responsible and diverse group of 350,000 team members in more than 50 countries. With its strong over 55-year heritage, Capgemini is trusted by its clients to unlock the value of technology to address the entire breadth of their business needs. It delivers end-to-end services and solutions leveraging strengths from strategy and design to engineering, all fueled by its market leading capabilities in AI, cloud and data, combined with its deep industry expertise and partner ecosystem. The Group reported 2024 global revenues of €22.1 billion.
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