The project aims to detect a fire the size of a classroom within 20 minutes. Wildfires are becoming an increasingly common threat worldwide. Record-breaking burns from Australia to the Amazon to the United States are devastating the environment. The deadly wildfires that raged across Los Angeles in January were estimated to have caused more than 250 billion in damages. Current satellite imagery is often low resolution, infrequently updated and unable to detect small fires.

Nuance has partnered with The Health Management Academy (The Academy) to launch The AI Collaborative, an industry group focused on advancing healthcare using artificial intelligence and machine learning. Nuance became a household name for creating the speech engine recognition engine behind Siri. In recent years, the company has put a strong focus on AI solutions for healthcare and is now a full-service partner of 77 percent of US hospitals and is trusted by over 500,000 physicians daily. Earlier this year, Microsoft acquired Nuance with the promise of ushering in a "new era of outcomes-based AI". Microsoft is also active in the healthcare space and its acquisition of Nuance was investigated by regulators over concerns it may reduce competition.

Nuance is a technology pioneer with market leadership in conversational AI and ambient intelligence, and a full-service partner of 77 percent of U.S. hospitals and trusted by over 500,000 physicians daily. Microsoft provides trusted and secure cloud and AI capabilities with the goal to empower people and organizations to address the complex challenges facing the healthcare industry today. With a long-term commitment to leveraging cloud and AI technologies to enhance patient engagement and outcomes, reduce clinician burnout, improve clinical quality and safety, and enhance financial performance, Nuance and Microsoft are leaders in the future-focused healthcare ecosystem and well-equipped to ensure The AI Collaborative members are at the front-end of education and learning on the evolution of AI in healthcare. "The key to successful healthcare innovation using AI is understanding at a deep level the problems that you're trying to solve and focusing on the outcomes you want to achieve," said Peter Durlach, Chief Strategy Officer of Nuance. "With the combined engineering, market and domain expertise of Nuance and Microsoft, The AI Collaborative can bring together multiple technical, business and clinical stakeholders to prioritize deployment of solutions for clinician burnout, patient engagement and health system financial stability, while accelerating innovation in precision medicine, drug discovery, clinical decision support and other promising use cases across the entire healthcare ecosystem."

The AI Collaborative will commence in September 2022 and will include a visit to Microsoft's corporate headquarters and annual summits in subsequent years. These events will include key stakeholders across LHS leadership teams embedded in analytics, digital strategy, and clinical transformation, along with subject-matter experts from the med-tech, payer, and life sciences sectors. Learning opportunities at The AI Collaborative Summits will anchor around stakeholders who are deeply committed to embracing AI as a transformative and disruptive tool in healthcare. Via workshops, learning exercises, and instant insights generation, The AI Collaborative Summits will empower attendees with tactical strategies to utilize patient-specific data and insights to augment care delivery, reduce care variation, and support operational improvements. "Our members have expressed their desire for a dedicated space to explore AI in healthcare and its enormous potential to improve outcomes and clinical workflow," said Renee DeSilva, CEO of The Academy.