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Socially intelligent virtual agents are a promising solution to the increasing challenges of eldercare. This article describes an autonomous conversational agent system, simulating human-like affective behaviour to act as a daily life companion for older adults living at home. We present results from a user-centred design study that informed the design of the companion. The interaction with the user is based on a multimodal interface including automatic speech recognition, text-to-speech, and a graphical touch-based user interface. The companion offers support to older adults by locating objects, offering reminders, and guidance with household activities. It also supports emergency detection and handling. We present the companion’s architecture and key components as well as the affective interaction paradigm and its implementation in the multimodal user interface. We conducted an exploratory evaluation …