The discreet intelligence of light, between AI and longevity

Euroluce 2027 will be the 32nd edition of the biennial event devoted to light during the Salone del Mobile.Milano scheduled from 13 to 18 April. We are starting to talk about the issues it willdeal with, which include sustainability, technology and innovation, together with well-being, which is gaining increasing attention from markets right across the board.

Among the eventsscheduled, the new Euroluce International Lighting Forum will devote space to the relationship between light and wellbeing, and artificial intelligence will obviously be among the topics on the agenda. The time is right: according to the most recent ISTAT data, in Italy people are living ever longer: life expectancy at birth is now over 83 years, but the years lived in good health come to an end much sooner – between 57 and 60. It is a gap that the whole world knows well because, according to the WHO, healthy life expectancy globally today ends at about 63, compared to almost 74 years of total life expectancy, a gap of a decade that in the richest countries, from the United States to Australia, exceeds 12-13 years.

Read also: Design for longevity, the project in the time of the silver economy

With careers getting longer and the average age rising everywhere, the real challenge is no longer to live a long life, but to lengthen the healthy part of that life. It is a change of perspective that had to be dealt with by design: in fact we are moving from solving an age-related problem to designing possibilities for living better and longer, in environments that remain familiar and emotionally present even when they’re getting smarter.

Already in the 2025 edition, signs of attention to well-being and technology could be perceived with several brands beginning to translate this sensibility into new products. Vibia has brought circadian synchronization to the Offset, Circle and Line collections with Chromatica technology; Grau has presented “Sunset Dimming”, a light that slowly fades like a sunset; Artemide, with Dusk by BIG, has reproduced the spectrum of sunlight. A new paradigm, human-centred lighting, becomes a daily gesture with a light that accompanies waking, working and the evening, instead of remaining identical from dawn to dusk.  

This trend affects not only the home, but is entering other living spaces. Hotels and spas are beginning to imagine light as part of the hospitality experience and not just as part of the furnishings, while in offices dynamic lighting is beginning to be designed to support energy and concentration all through the day, a kind of light that goes beyond illuminating a desk. The first signs from companies are here: Cariboni Group presented Levante 2.0, “Blue-Free” street lighting with adjustable colour temperature and IoT/smart city integration; LedsC4 displayeddigital management systems with advanced sensors, predictive maintenance and customisable light scenes. In short, light is beginning to be treated as a service that adapts to those who experience it whatever space they are in. However, a further level, a next step, is now glimpsed, driven by AI with intelligent and surgical control of light.  

The promise is of a kind of light that learns by observing people’s everyday actions and rituals, transforming the data to offer lighting tailored to individuals, capable of adapting to the real behaviour of the people who experience it, following habits and schedules, to construct their own daily curve over time. It is precisely on this ground that lighting meets longevity, understood not as a medical category but as a new way of designing for a longer lifelived better. The Global Wellness Summit has indicated “longevity residences” among trends for 2026: homes designed as active allies of those who live in them, not passive containers. In projects such as The Estate or Velvaere, two examples of “longevity residences”, circadian light coexists with other intelligent systems within a philosophy of living that combines technology and self-care, for a home that accompanies with discretion without medicalising.  

There are still some unanswered questions, which design will have to try to find answers to. They are: Where is the boundary line between real learning and more sophisticated automation? Who will own the data that these systems collect? Will this quality of light remain the privilege of a few homes? Or will it also be used in collective spaces, from offices to hospitals? Questions that will find space and a voice in the next edition of Euroluce.