Industry Watcher’s Digest
- Chatbot maker falls afoul of shareholders. Conversational AI vendor LivePerson (New York City) is being sued for allegedly misleading investors about its finances. The company has clients in healthcare, and the class-action complaint mentions issues with Medicare reimbursement involving a subsidiary. The plaintiff, a shareholder who wants a jury trial, alleges LivePerson made dishonest statements as a way to conceal weaknesses in its internal controls. A number of law firms have posted announcements detailing the opportunity for potential co-litigants.
- $75M goes toward precision mental healthcare. Columbia University is setting up a new behavioral health operation to synergize advances—clinical as well as investigatory—in AI, neuroscience, psychiatric genomics and stem cell biology, among other disciplines. The work is getting off the ground with a $75 million grant. Named for the lead philanthropic organization behind that sum, it’ll be called the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center for Precision Psychiatry & Mental Health at Columbia University. The announcement quotes the foundation’s co-president, Andreas Dracopoulos. “The significant progress we have made in caring for our physical health in recent decades is apparent,” he says, “but just as clear is the fact that we have left behind our mental health.” That’s a little less of a problem today than it was yesterday. Full announcement here.
- What does Goldman Sachs look for in a healthcare AI startup it may want to fund? Nothing out of the ordinary. Just the quality of the management team, the ultimate goal of the platform, the timeframe in which investors will understand whether this goal has been achieved and how the platform merges the available AI/machine learning toolkit with proprietary technologies to defend against emerging players. Those are the Wall Street titan’s own words as stated in an April 26 newsletter item. More: “Because of the AI/ML’s potential advantages in efficiency and effectiveness, how each company utilizes the armamentarium of available and rapidly expanding technologies is an important part of competitive differentiation.” Read the full item.
- Best to steer clear of the uncanny valley. Makers of conversational AI chatbots and interactive robots should make sure their machines aren’t fun to speak with. No humor, no small talk, no more than a trace of personality. So advises a marketing instructor at the University of Minnesota who’s been studying how people talk and listen to inanimate objects that can talk and listen back. “When it’s too human, we don’t want that and we feel threatened,” the marketing researcher, Marat Bakpayev, PhD, tells the (Minneapolis) Star Tribune. Full article here, good primer on the uncanny valley effect here.
- AI accelerates research into rare pediatric syndrome caused by COVID. Children who develop multisystem inflammatory syndrome linked to COVID-19 (MIS-C) have a distinct biomarker pattern—one not seen in pediatric COVID patients who don’t develop the rare condition. That’s according to NIH-backed researchers who used high-speed, AI-controlled molecular sequencing of RNA and DNA to uncover some of MIS-C’s most vexing mysteries. Affected organs may include the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes or gastrointestinal tract, and NIH says the findings could lead to better diagnostics and treatments.
- AI may well prevail over prostate cancer. Avenda Health (Culver City, Calif.) is celebrating the first commercial use of its AI toolkit designed for personalizing prostate cancer care. Called Unfold AI, the product was used in a clinical setting this week. The company says the software converts patient-specific data from prostate imaging, biopsies and pathology into deep-learning algorithms. These help guide physicians in precisely localizing tumors and mapping their margins via 3D visualizations. Avenda media alert here, coverage by Health Imaging here.
Dave P. has worked in journalism, marketing and public relations for more than 30 years, frequently concentrating on hospitals, healthcare technology and Catholic communications. He has also specialized in fundraising communications, ghostwriting for CEOs of local, national and global charities, nonprofits and foundations.