Former Amazon, Google X execs launch NewDays, an AI-powered cognitive treatment program

Fierce Healthcare, Heather Landi, September 3, 2025

Startup NewDays developed an artificial intelligence-based companion, called Sunny, to advance brain health and bring an innovative approach to dementia care.

People experiencing cognitive changes can have frequent, structured conversations with Sunny along with regular telehealth appointments with clinicians.

Advancements with generative AI technology have opened up new opportunities to scale cognitive treatments to a wider population, Babak Parviz, NewDays co-founder and CEO, told Fierce Healthcare.

"We recognized a very large unmet need and a fundamentally new enabling piece of technology and put these two together and decided that this might be the right time to go do something that's helpful for this population," said Parviz, who founded NewDays with Daniel Kelly, a former engineering leader at Amazon and Google X.

An estimated 7.2 million Americans age 65 and older are living with Alzheimer's in 2025. That number is projected to rise to nearly 13 million by 2050, according to the Alzheimer's Association. About 1 in 9 people age 65 and older (11%) has Alzheimer's. Additionally it's estimated that about 22% have mild cognitive impairment. That means 1 in 3 people over 65 have a serious cognitive issue. 

Parviz, a former vice president at Amazon, founded and led the Grand Challenge organization, basically Amazon's "moonshot lab" responsible for identifying, investing in and operationalizing new areas for the company, including healthcare. At Google X, he founded and led the Google Glass team from inception to launch. 

Parviz and Kelly teamed up to launch NewDays last year. Kelly has spent a large part of his career at the intersection of engineering and healthcare while also experiencing first-hand the impact of dementia on individuals and families. "It's a disease I've grown up with. It's always been part of my life, one way or another," he noted.

"Cognition is a really interesting space where so many other diseases of the body are common amongst anyone that has the disease, but they are just aspects of your cognition that are very unique to the experiences you've had as an individual," Kelly said in an interview. "I really see a lot of opportunity to use some of the advancements in generative AI and  LLMs, AI in general, to really personalize medicine to cognition and understand it better."

The startup picked up an oversubscribed $7 million seed round backed by General Catalyst and Madrona to expand its science-backed cognitive health treatment program. NewDays is now making its services available in Texas, following a successful pilot phase in California, Washington and Florida. The company plans to expand to additional states by the end of the year.

NewDays AI companion, Sunny, and is cognitive treatment program is based on evidence from more than 300 clinical trials and 50-plus meta analyses. Foundational to NewDays' work is the Internet-Based Conversational Engagement Clinical Trial (I-CONECT) study led by Hiroko Dodge, Ph.D., professor of neurology at Harvard University. NewDays holds exclusive license to this protocol.

The I-CONECT study found that structured frequent conversations with a trained clinician resulted in measurable delays in cognitive decline and reduction in loneliness and isolation in adults aged 75 and up. The top participants in the study delayed cognitive decline for six months or more, proving that targeted intervention can make a real difference, according to the company.

"For years, we've known these approaches work, but scaling them has been virtually impossible due to the limited availability of trained professionals and cost," said Dodge, an advisor to NewDays. "NewDays represents a breakthrough in bringing scientifically validated cognitive rehabilitation to those who need it most," she noted.

During the initial video visit, clinicians will conduct an assessment of the patient and discuss goal-setting. The clinician then structures a program that includes frequent cognitive exercises that are personalized based on the patient's diagnosis and goals. During regular telehealth visits, the clinician also will provide cognitive rehabilitation and supportive psychotherapy.

Patients engage with Sunny, the AI companion, frequently in clinician-assigned, long-form conversational exercises that bolster verbal fluency, improve memory, prevent social isolation and build strategies for overcoming daily functional challenges. Powered by the AI platform, clinicians are able to optimize their patient’s program based on their interactions, according to executives.

The program is designed for individuals with mild cognitive impairment, mild to moderate dementia, or subjective cognitive decline.

Research shows there are non-pharmacological interventions that can meaningfully help individuals with mild cognitive impairment by improving cognition, delaying decline and enhancing quality of life, executives said.

 "Advancements in AI let us take those game-changing findings and provide them widely in a way that wasn’t technologically possible even a couple of years ago," Parviz said.

NewDays' approach is based on clinical research that shows specific interventions can be beneficial for people that face cognitive change. Cognitive stimulation therapy, cognitive training and cognitive rehabilitation, which are all based on having guided conversations, can help delay cognitive decline.

"These interventions are often highly personalized to the individual and delivered always in the form of a long-form conversation between two individuals and often involved very frequent interactions," Parviz said. But these interventions would require a large number of trained clinicians to scale to the millions of individuals who could benefit from it."These treatments, even though they are clinically proven to be helpful, they have never met the market or met the people that need them," he said.

The use of AI, combined with human clinical oversight, helps to democratize access to these interventions and makes the programs more affordable to patients, Parviz noted.

Participants in NewDays' early access program say that conversations with Sunny are mentally engaging and help guard against isolation. They also report speaking more freely without fear of judgment. 

During NewDays' pilot phase, more than 1,000 users signed up to try the AI and it earned a 4.5 out of 5 customer satisfaction score. And, 100% of survey respondents reported feeling "better" or "a lot better" after engaging with the full treatment program of virtual visits with clinicians and having frequent conversations with AI, the company said.

"The NewDays team brings together world-class expertise in AI, technology innovation, and clinical neuropsychology,” said Tim Porter, managing director at Madrona in a statement. “We've seen firsthand how AI is transforming industries, but few applications have the potential for such meaningful human impact as NewDays. Their approach to leveraging AI for cognitive health is precisely the kind of purposeful innovation we champion at Madrona.

Holly Maloney, managing director at General Catalyst said NewDays is addressing a "critical gap in cognitive health with a science-backed solution that puts patients first. Their combination of AI innovation with human clinical oversight represents the future of digital health."

NewDays is actively working to become in-network with many private insurance and Medicare Advantage plans in its service areas, executives said.

The company accepts traditional Medicare for the virtual therapy appointments with clinicians. That service is currently billed as an out-of-network provider for private insurance. 

Patients who choose not to use insurance pay $150 per telehealth visit, according to NewDays' website.

The program offers free daily AI exercises to individuals. Access to personalized treatment plans and customized AI-powered cognitive exercises are included in a premium subscription that costs $99 a month, which is not covered by insurance.

Continue reading this story on the Fierce Healthcare website.