Healthcare isn’t cheap in today’s time and rising healthcare costs are a primary reason why most people avoid going to the doctor. A startup called Babylon Health created an AI system capable of identifying different medical conditions to make healthcare services affordable and accessible to everyone. Operating as a chatbot, Babylon communicates with users via text. Babylon analyzes the data and compares it to known conditions once they’ve entered their symptoms to find the right match and provides relevant medical information. Additionally, patients can use the service to book a video appointment with a doctor, receive drug prescriptions, and book exams at nearby medical facilities. Based on the information you enter, it also provides you with a health report.

Previous testing relied on entering various symptoms into the system and comparing the results to those made by human doctors. While human doctors provided accuracy ranging between 52 percent and 99 percent, Babylon showed 98 percent accuracy in identifying common conditions in primary care. However, Babylon isn’t a replacement for a human doctor and as the company’s website warns, this solution shouldn’t be used in emergency medical situations and does not diagnose the user’s health condition or make treatment recommendations.

Artificial Intelligence is affecting various industries, and healthcare is not exempt from these changes. Driven by AI, this wave of innovation could lead to the development of cutting-edge solutions capable of saving more patients’ lives. Although most of these solutions are still in early development, they take us one step closer toward a brighter future where healthcare is efficient, more affordable and easily accessible to everyone, regardless of their geography.