Ant Group Accelerates AI Healthcare Development with Launch of New 'AQ' Large Model Application}

Ant Group is rapidly advancing AI in healthcare, launching a new AI health application called "AQ" on June 26. Focusing on essential medical needs and health management pain points, AQ provides over a hundred AI features such as health education, consultation, report interpretation, and health records. It can efficiently connect with over 5,000 hospitals nationwide, nearly one million doctors, and nearly 200 AI doctor avatars of top specialists. The app is now available on major app stores.

Ant Group CEO Han Xinyi stated: “Through AQ, we aim to give everyone a trustworthy health steward, creating a personal health assistant and a helpful tool for universal healthcare, bringing every Chinese closer to a healthy life.”

AI health steward with image recognition capabilities arrives

Data shows that nearly 75% of Chinese face suboptimal health issues, making nationwide health management crucial. However, public tools are limited: over 200 million searches daily for health issues, but content is often unreliable, creating a demand for more professional medical information and services.

To address this, Ant’s AQ was created. Vice President Zhang Junjie explained that the “AI health steward” launched on Alipay last September has served over 70 million users. After nearly 10 months of refinement, the new standalone app AQ features “more professional Q&A, comprehensive services, and a health-aware approach.”

When consulting about symptoms, many users struggle to describe their conditions accurately. Built on Ant’s medical large model, AQ can mimic real doctors by asking follow-up questions, guiding users to provide necessary information, and ultimately offering more precise health advice. For complex reports, skin issues, medication boxes, or medical records, users can also upload photos. For example, AQ with visual language recognition of hundreds of billions of parameters can accurately identify 50 common skin diseases and provide health suggestions.

To help users choose hospitals and doctors, AQ connects with over 5,000 public hospitals and nearly one million doctors nationwide, offering appointment booking and online consultation. Some hospitals also provide cloud-guided outpatient services via AQ, assisting users in offline visits.

Notably, top experts from the Chinese Academy of Engineering, including dermatology and thoracic surgery specialists, have launched “AI avatars” on AQ, providing 24/7 consultation. For elderly users, voice call functions are available, allowing seniors to ask health questions easily.

For health management, AQ offers personalized health records, tracking medical visits, medication, exercise, and diet. It also collaborates with health device brands like Yuwell and Sano, integrating with wearable devices from Vivo, Huawei, and Apple to provide tailored health advice based on blood sugar, sleep, and activity data. Yuwell’s “An Nai Tang” and “Breath Keeper” smart devices are among the first to be integrated into AQ for chronic disease management.

Solid technical foundation and top medical experts as AI trainers

Behind AQ’s health management capabilities is a robust technical engine and the deep involvement of over a thousand medical professionals nationwide.

Ant’s medical large model has learned over one trillion tokens of professional medical data, possessing reasoning abilities akin to medical thinking, as well as multimodal interactions including images, voice, and videos. It has achieved industry-leading results in domestic and international evaluations like HealthBench and MedBench. The model also integrates Ant’s privacy and security technologies, passing trusted medical AI assessments with the highest safety level.

All doctors on AQ undergo strict training and evaluation before being deployed as AI avatars. Leading experts from top hospitals also serve as advisors, deeply participating in specialty assessments and evaluations.

Dr. Mao Hongjing, a chief physician and deputy director at Hangzhou Seventh People’s Hospital, is one of the first doctors to have an AI avatar. Based on extensive clinical data and over 50,000 medical articles, Dr. Mao’s AI avatar now serves over 110,000 patients daily, expanding from Zhejiang Province to nationwide.

Zhang Junjie stated: “AQ is not only a health service platform but also a bridge connecting doctors, medical institutions, and users. We will continue to open up and collaborate with more partners to promote inclusive healthcare and national health.”

Chen Huashan, Secretary-General of the Artificial Intelligence Research Promotion Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, believes that health management is a vital public service. “With China’s large population suffering from chronic diseases and strained healthcare resources, products like AQ can help bridge resource gaps, optimize allocation, and promote inclusive healthcare.”