Google's latest foray into health care is a web tool that uses artificial intelligence to help people identify skin, hair, or nail conditions. The company previewed the tool at I/O today, and it says it hopes to launch a pilot later this year. People can use their phone's camera to take three pictures of the problem area -- for example, a rash on their arm. The tool then gives a list of possible conditions from a set of 288 that it's trained to recognize. It's not intended to diagnose the problem, the company said in a blog post.

Tech giant Google has come up with an AI model that can identify skin conditions from descriptive text and image input. As bizarre as Google getting into the medical sector sounds, if this tool can actually do what Google claims, it could possibly identify fatal skin conditions or even early stages of skin cancer. How Google's dermatology assist tool will work When this dermatology tool pilot launches later this year, users will be able to, using their phone's camera, upload images of their skin, nail or hair to the web application. Then the user will be asked to answer some common questions like what symptoms they have, for how long they are facing these issues, etc. After receiving the information and images of the condition from different angles, Google's AI model will analyse the input and cross-check with predefined 288 skin conditions and give users few possible matching conditions.

Google has developed a new tool that uses AI to help people identify common skin conditions. Every year, people reach out to Google Search almost 10 billion times to ask questions about skin, nails, and hair. While the information is there, it remains difficult for many to precisely describe the visible symptoms with words alone. Statistics show that over two billion people across the globe are affected by dermatological issues, and there is a global shortage of specialists. That's why Google developed the AI-powered dermatology assist tool – a web-based application that works with the camera on your phone.