Where Artificial Intelligence Will Pay Off Most in Health Care

Of all the places where artificial intelligence is gaining a foothold, nowhere is the impact likely to be as great--at least in the near term--as in healthcare. A new report from Accenture Consulting, entitled Artificial Intelligence: Healthcare's New Nervous System, projects the market for health-related AI to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 40% through 2021--to $6.6 billion, from around $600 million in 2014. In that regard, the Accenture report, authored by senior managing director Matthew Collier and colleagues, echoes earlier assessments of the market. A comprehensive research briefing last September by CB Insights tech analyst Deepashri Varadharajan, for example--which tracked AI startups across industries from 2012 through the fall of 2016--showed healthcare dominating every other sector, from security and finance to sales & marketing. Varadharajan calculated there were 188 deals across various healthcare segments from Jan. 2012 to Sept. 2016, worth an aggregate $1.5 billion in global equity funding.