SONG CHEN/CHINA DAILY
Song Jiayi, a 32-year-old employee in Beijing, usually goes to the gym after work. She enjoys running on a treadmill for over an hour and attending various fitness classes focused on personal health and weight management.
Like most of his peers, Song keeps up with the latest developments in artificial intelligence technology and recently downloaded a health-related app on his smartphone.
“I can record my health status by uploading images or entering text and my voice into the app. The AI-powered health tool can provide real-time answers to medical questions and formulate personalized health management plans, including daily exercise, diet and sleep for me,” she said.
Song said the digital health assistant also functions as a friendly doctor, personal nutritionist and sports coach. In addition to personalized health management, the app offers online medical consultation services through a nationwide network of doctors.
Song is one of tens of thousands of people turning to AI-powered apps that help them track and analyze their health and issue medication reminders.
China’s leading technology companies are rushing to enter the AI-based healthcare sector to accelerate the commercial application of this cutting-edge technology and meet the growing medical demands of a rapidly aging population.
China’s elderly care sector is expected to exceed 20 trillion yuan ($2.8 trillion) by 2030, according to a report by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
Ant Group renamed its AI health app AQ to Ant Afu and released a new version of the app, upgrading its three main functions: health companion, health Q&A, and health services.
The company said Ant Afu focuses on a “health plus” strategy, repositioning the product from an AI “tool” to an AI “friend” that provides health services and helps users manage their own health issues and those of their family members.
The number of monthly active users has exceeded 15 million, making it the largest AI-based healthcare application in China. It answers more than 5 million health questions every day, with 55% of users coming from third-tier cities and below.
Zhang Junjie, vice president of Ant Group and president of the company’s health business unit, said the most significant change to the app is the addition of a health companion function, which aims to help users develop healthy daily habits.
Users can record their health status and upload their information by taking photos and uploading images.
The app can access smart devices from Apple, Huawei, Vivo and Omron to sync users’ daily health data and allow them to view their exercise levels, heart rate, blood pressure and sleep time.
It can also create health records for family members and set multiple goals such as exercise, diet and lifestyle habits. Afu acts as a “personal coach” to personalize a tailor-made plan for users based on their goals.
“Professionalism and usefulness of responses are the foundation of an AI tool,” Zhang said, adding that a health app should be able to establish a dialogue with users and provide a personalized solution to each individual.
However, the company stressed that Afu’s answers do not constitute medical diagnoses and will never replace real doctors. For users with medical needs, Afu connects with 300,000 doctors nationwide to provide online consultation services.
Meanwhile, Baidu Inc recently announced the official upgrade of its AI-powered health assistant.
“Our goal is to provide every family with a one-stop service for disease prevention, knowledge acquisition and health management through an intelligent, reliable and always-on AI partner,” said Yang Minglu, general manager of Baidu Health.
The company’s goal is to integrate professional health care into all aspects of users’ daily lives, Yang said. The total order volume of its healthcare services has exceeded 47 million, representing the shift from a healthcare assistant to a 24/7 all-in-one family doctor.
Lu Mei, head of Baidu Health’s AI application products, said the app covers a full range of services from light consultations to complex disease treatments and comprehensive health management. It can accurately process multiple input forms such as text, image, audio and video, with a recognition accuracy rate of over 95%.
Baidu Health has opened its vast resources – including 600 million professional health contents, 360,000 medical services and more than 100 AI tools – to a wide range of partners. These partners include hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, insurance institutions, smart hardware manufacturers and healthcare application developers.
“AI has become a key driver for improving efficiency and driving innovation in the healthcare industry,” said Jiang Han, principal analyst at market consultancy Pangoal.
“The main competition between technology giants in the healthcare sector has evolved from simple traffic acquisition to one focused on building comprehensive capabilities spanning data, application scenarios and ecosystem.”
Jiang said companies that can integrate health management, diagnosis, payment and delivery of pharmaceuticals, as well as create a user-centered service loop, will gain a competitive advantage. “This involves the ability to combine medical resources, ensure regulatory compliance and foster cross-sector collaboration,” Jiang said.
Chinese tech giants, with their huge user bases and data assets, are well-positioned to leverage their platform traffic to drive the development of the healthcare sector, he added.