Healthcare and pharmaceutical industries rush to tackle a wide range of COVID-19 challenges, from developing treatments and sourcing medical supplies to mitigating outbreaks and racing towards a vaccine, the use of AI-driven solutions is accelerating rapidly. Hospitals in the U.K. are turning to AI to help triage COVID-19 patients. The CDC hosts an AI-driven bot on its website to help screen for coronavirus infections. The FDA recently cleared several AI-driven devices to screen COVID-19 patients for heart problems.
Need for AI’s algorithmic modeling power is potentially reshaping the future of a highly regulated industry that has historically been conservative about implementing new technologies. In fact, AI spending in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries is expected to increase from $463 million in 2019 to more than $2 billion over the next five years.