Google to Fund Development of AI Assistant for Clalit Health Services

In depth

Google will transfer a grant of $2 million to Clalit Health Services to develop a voice-based artificial intelligence assistant for patients. The system will enable scheduling appointments, reporting symptoms and receiving medical guidance. According to the companies, the assistant will converse with patients by voice, including over landline phones and in various languages and dialects. The system will be based on Gemini and Google's cloud infrastructure.

The assistant will help triage symptoms before a visit to a doctor and prepare the patient for the visit. The system will support different languages and will allow service to be received even without internet access or a smartphone. The two-year grant will allow Clalit to develop a platform for 5 million patients from diverse communities.

The system will launch initially as a pilot. The model will run on a secure cloud and will later be released as open source for use by organizations worldwide. At the same time, Google is launching Gemini for Health, a platform that connects medical records, billing and insurance systems, and is being tested in the US with HCA, Optum and Northwell.