In the last few years, there has been a growing presence of artificial intelligence technologies or AI in healthcare. Though AI will not displace human relationships in the delivery of care, it will provide for an unchartered transformation of the healthcare industry. As highlighted in Trend 5: The Uncharted from the Accenture 2017 Digital Health Tech Vision, such a potentially massive change will demand a dramatically different governance structure from what we see today. The recent announcement of the Software Pre-Certification Pilot Program by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is one step in that direction. The FDA's stated purpose of the program is to balance the reduced time and cost of market entry for digital health against patient safety and quality of care.

Medtech startup AliveCor announced this morning it has pulled in $30 million from Omron Healthcare and the Mayo Clinic and is launching an artificially intelligent stroke prevention platform for doctors called KardiaPro. AliveCor already has an FDA-cleared mobile app called Kardia to accompany its $99 standalone EKG reader device. However, a partnership last year with the Mayo Clinic involving 4,500 patients for a major study on stroke prompted the company to build the new platform, which is a premium offering for doctors who want to monitor the EKG readouts of patients at potential risk for stroke or other heart-related diseases. KardiaPro will track a number of factors for at-risk patients, including weight, activity and blood pressure and then runs them through the AliveCor AI technology to suss out potential triggers doctors may not detect on their own. The platform then feeds what AliveCor CEO Vic Gundotra refers to as a "personal heart profile" for patients that can then be used to send alerts to the doctor to help them determine the next course of action. AliveCor raised $13.5 million previously from Khosla Ventures, Qualcomm and Burrill and Company.

Two years after originally announcing it, Medtronic and IBM Watson have launched their joint platform the Sugar.IQ, a digital diabetes assistant. "It is designed for people who are currently using Guardian Connect; so made for people on multiple daily injections. It is a personal assistant a little bit like Alexa or Siri," Huzefa Neemuchwala, global head of digital health solutions and AI at Medtronic, said in a Facebook live informational session. "It is an intelligent assistant that keeps track of all of your information and has all of your information in one place. Then through Watson technology we use this information to power insights so we can better manage your diabetes so that you can spend more time in range."

Big data, artificial intelligence and machine learning are ruling the tech structure of most industries. We all know how Amazon combines a customer's historical data and other customers' data to power recommendations. Likewise, for Google, it's not difficult to predict our preferences and interests. They make use of big data, analytics and machine learning to be able to process huge amounts of data, identify patterns, analyze them and consequently indulge in predictive analysis. The most complicated disease of the most important organ of the body – the brain, is a clear beneficiary of this AI approach.

In the future, artificial intelligence may be the facilitator of decision-making, financial instruments and even conclusion of contracts. However, its actual power to impact these and other activities is difficult to predict. That's why various leading experts and organizations are pushing for the regulation of AI at many levels, all the way from consumer-grade to international markets. But it remains to be seen how AI use within companies can be regulated, what form this regulation will take and whether it can be truly effective. By contrast, Musk appears to fear that autonomous machines will take control of the world, having seemingly failed to grasp the definition of AI for the purposes of the debate over regulation. AI consists of the software-level processes capable of performing functions such as sifting through large quantities of data and reaching conclusions in line with their programmed parameters; the main application of AI lies in saving similarly capable humans from conducting lengthy and tedious tasks.

From cofounding Sirius Satellite Radio to launching a biotech company to find a cure for her daughter's illness, Martine Rothblatt has had so much career success that any one of her accomplishments would be a crowning achievement for another entrepreneur. "I always try to convert a moonshot into an earthshot," Rothblatt told hundreds at the Forbes Women's Summit on Tuesday. As the CEO of United Therapeutics, which now sells five FDA-approved pills for pulmonary arterial hypertension, Rothblatt is constantly innovating. Her company has been experimenting with pig cloning and genetic modification to create organ transplants the body doesn't reject. She's also now figured out how to save the some 80% of donated lungs that end up unusable. On the side, Rothblatt is also working on the first electric helicopter and, as a transhumanist, Rothblatt experiments with robots.

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A track record of prior competency that is above and beyond the norm is what hiring managers look for when they recruit "top talent", as recruiters like to say. Usually "top talents" can command a premium in the market place because everybody wants to employ them. We can equate these "top talents" to top quality stocks. You often hear dividend investors talk about how top dividend growth stocks are "always too expensive". That comment usually refers to the yield for the stock being lower than average, which in the case of a quality stock just represents a greater anticipation of future growth.

A growing number of startups are beginning to use artificial intelligence to improve--and in some ways upend--the healthcare industry. And that might be as simple as a diagnosing a cough or as complex as curing cancer. Cloud DX, a startup based in Toronto, for example, is using a concoction of data and machine learning to identify tuberculosis, pneumonia, upper respiratory infection and bronchitis by teaching AI to detect the difference between the diseases based on how a cough sounds. By recording 750 coughs from patients, along with 1,500 fake coughs from healthy people, the software can tell the difference between tuberculosis, pneumonia, upper respiratory infection or bronchitis. "It's just like Dr. House," CEO Robert Kaul said, referencing the cranky-but-brilliant physician from the hit TV show House.

A French startup has developed a futuristic exoskeleton device that can help patients with complete lower body paralysis to walk without crutches or a walker. Called the'Atalante', it's a robotic suit that uses sophisticated computers and motors to emulate the way humans walk. The device was developed by Paris-based Wandercraft and is now undergoing patient trials, with the hope of going on sale soon. A French startup has developed a futuristic exoskeleton device that can help paraplegic patients walk without crutches or a walker. It's currently in testing but could go on sale soon Users begin by sitting in the device then moving their hips, which tells the motors in the hips, knees and ankle to move, forcing the device into a standing position.