This article describes the highlights of the first two years of activities of RoboCare, an Italian research project aimed at developing intelligent software and robotic agents which can enhance the quality of life of elderly people at home or in a health-care institution. These two years of research have produced several innovations related to the use of robotics, sensory, and activity monitoring technology in the elder-care context. This paper provides a summary of the main contributions of RoboCare in its first two years of activities. Rather than describing in detail the specific techniques we have developed, for which we point the interested reader to related work, our aim is to highlight some specific issues which our results have given rise to in the context of AI applications in elder care. More specifically, the paper is dedicated to exposing the principal strengths and weaknesses of our technology in this application scenario.