Organizations, Institutions and many other companies have been quick to apply their AI and ML know-how in the fight to curb this pandemic. These technologies are being deployed in areas of research to healthcare, transport, logistics, packaging, delivery, food industry and even agriculture. As the entire world grapples and is distressed with COVID-19, every ounce of sophisticated technological innovation and genius minds harnessed to help fight this pandemic, gets us one step closer to overcoming it and hopefully soon, eradicating it. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are busy taking key roles and the frontline in better understanding and addressing the COVID-19 crisis and how it is impacting countries. ML technology enables sophisticated computers to mimic human intelligence (sometimes even better) and ingest large volumes of data to quickly identify patterns and insights and helps humans make better informed decisions.
In our fight against COVID-19 pandemic, organizations, institutions, hospitals, companies etc. have been quick to apply their ML expertise in many areas: how to scale customer communications, understanding how COVID-19 virus spreads, and speeding up research in vaccination and treatment.
AI-based chatbots to answers public questions
Health care and Government Organisations that include using ML-enabled chatbots for enabling contactless screening of COVID-19 symptoms and to answer frequently asked questions from the public.
In order to make it easier for people to find government communications about COVID-19 to block out rumours and panic the government are creating such AI-enabled chatbots. By real-time information updates provided by the government and the WHO, the chatbot assesses known symptoms and answers questions about government policies. With almost 3 million messages sent to-date, this chatbot is able to answer questions on everything from exercise to an evaluation of COVID-19 risks, without further straining the resources of healthcare and government institutions.
AI-Driven crop monitoring services
To avoid major disruption to the food supply chain, food processors along with governments need to understand the current state of agriculture. The government are providing cutting-edge AI-driven crop-monitoring services to retailers free of charge to provide additional resiliency and certainty to supply chains. The technology works to assess satellite images of crops to flag potential issues to farmers and retailers early on so they can better manage supply, procurement and inventory planning.
AI based ultrasound analysis solutions
One more such way AI is helping Humanity is by Imaging Analysis, an AI based ultrasound analysis solutions, to develop solutions for ultrasound imaging analysis of COVID-19 patients using artificial Intelligence (AI). Using ultrasound in point-of-care ultrasound in emergency settings has gained momentum since the COVID-19 pandemic. In these settings, makeshift hospital COVID-19 departments and triage tents, portable ultrasound offers clinicians diagnostic decision support, with the added advantage of being easier to disinfect and also eliminate the need to transport patients from one room to another which is also highly risky keeping in mind of the high degree of contagiousness. However, analysing ultrasound images is a process that it is still mostly done visually and manually, which is very time consuming and has a big scope of human error too, leading to a growing market need for automated solutions and decision support. Another example is AI-based cardiac ultrasound analysis empowers clinicians, and hospitals to automatically generate objective and precise clinical analysis, with much higher accuracy and greater efficiency to support decisions about patient treatment and care and also the increasing volumes of cases and treatment protocols. The IIA grant provides a budget of millions NIS to increase access to DiA’s solutions for users in Israel and globally, and also to accelerate R&D with a focus on new Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning solutions for COVID-19 patient management. DiA solutions are vendor-neutral, as well as powered to run in low processing, mobile devices like handheld ultrasound making it a practical solution which is accurate and time saving as well. Enabling organizations and healthcare providers to scale and adjust. Healthcare providers and governmental bodies are using AI-enable chatbots to screen for COVID and take questions from the public, the author cites a French startup, Clevy.io. understanding how COVID-19 spreads.
AI-based app to determine the zones
In India, AI and ML has also been implemented to government run apps to help track patients and their location to help contain zones and infection from spreading. Apps like the Arogya Setu app have used various data from devices like the Mobile phone, GPS etc. to help sensitize people and bring awareness about their own safety and also keep a vigil on the latest developments related to the COVID 19 pandemic. It also helps in removing any kind of myth and misinformation that is passed on via social media and other channels leading to panic and unrest.
Hence the AI and ML powered solutions have proven to be a phenomenal help in not just tracking the pandemic but also providing solutions and also enhancing the accuracy of a lot of healthcare solutions.
