Google's DeepMind To Create Product to Spot Sight-Threatening Disease

DeepMind and its partners in the research, London's Moorfields Eye Hospital and the University College London Institute of Ophthalmology, said they plan prospective clinical trials of the technology in 2019. If those trials are successful, DeepMind said it would seek to create a regulator-approved product that Moorfields could roll out across the U.K. It said the product would be free for an initial five-year period. The software would be the first time a DeepMind AI algorithm using machine learning has ended up in a healthcare product. Alphabet has several initiatives aimed at using artificial intelligence to improve healthcare. Earlier this year, Verily, an Alphabet company that says its goal is to extend human lifespans, teamed up with AI experts from Alphabet's Google, to develop an algorithm that could spot a range of cardiovascular issues from a different kind of retinal image.