Researchers have developed AI tools that can help detect brain abnormalities. Researchers have developed AI tools that can help detect brain abnormalities. 'Impressive for a robot': home care chatbots among AI tools being embraced by Australia's health system From GPs using the technology to record consultations to AI'detectives' finding brain lesions on scans, experts say it's only the beginning Fri 3 Oct 2025 11.00 EDTLast modified on Fri 3 Oct 2025 11.02 EDT Peta Rolls came to expect Aida's call at 10am each morning. A daily check-in call from an AI voice bot was not part of the service Rolls expected when she signed up for St Vincent's home care but when they asked her to be part of the trial four months ago, the 79-year-old said yes because she wanted to help. Although, truth be told, her expectations were low. Nevertheless, when she got the call, she says: "I was so overtaken by how responsive she was.

While a robot doctor at the bedside is not on the horizon, data-driven digital health is transforming how we receive care - and society is still playing catch-up on the ramifications. In 2012, Professor Enrico Coiera, Founding Director of the Centre for Health Informatics (CHI) at the Australian Institute for Health Innovation, published a paper titled The Dangerous Decade. In it, he warned that more information and communication technology (ICT) would be deployed into healthcare in the 10 years to 2022 than in the health system's entire history to date. "Systems will be larger in scope, more complex, and move from regional to national and supranational scale," he wrote. "Yet we are at roughly the same place the aviation industry was in the 1950s with respect to system safety."

In June 2018, Babylon Health hosted an event in London at which it showed off its latest digital healthcare development. It had developed artificial intelligence (AI) that it claimed was "better than a doctor". Considered a world-first, the AI proved it was on par with practising clinicians by taking tests, including a set of questions from the MRCGP exam – a test that has to be taken by every GP in the UK. Scoring higher than the average score over a period of five years, the AI achieved 81% during its first sitting. The industry and media alike were abuzz with excitement.