Activ Surgical harnesses AI and machine learning to collaborate with surgeons

Learn more about what comes next. In 2016, Dr. Peter Kim, founder of Activ Surgical, a digital surgery company, demonstrated a proof of concept of fully autonomous robotic surgery on soft tissue, suturing, or stitching up a wound. Since then, Activ Surgical has been working on harnessing machine learning, augmented reality, and other advanced technologies to develop new ways of collaborating with surgeons. "We want to keep surgeons in the loop, to give them more data than they ever had before," says CEO Todd Usen. Usen likens Activ Surgical's work in surgery to crossing goalposts in the drive toward autonomous driving: It might take a while to get there, but the industry is ramping up systematically.