Current and Potential Applications of Ambient Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

The fourth industrial revolution has transformed our daily life, with the introduction of new digital technologies.1Xu M. David J.M. Kim S.H. The fourth industrial revolution: opportunities and challenges.Int J Financ Res. 2018; 9: 90-95Crossref Scopus (451) Google Scholar This revolution has led to the integration of digital and physical worlds, created value, and impacted every sector of the economy. Ambient artificial intelligence (AI) is one such technology that is enabled by the fourth industrial revolution and has a great future potential for augmenting health care delivery.2Mahmood M.R. Raja R. Kaur H. Kumar S. Nagwanshi K.K. Ambient Intelligence and Internet of Things: Convergent Technologies. 1st ed. Scrivener Publishing, 2022Crossref Scopus (0) Google Scholar The need for digital interventions and augmentation in health care delivery and clinical medicine has never been greater. The postpandemic, current endemic society has crippled health care institutions around the world. Physician burnout and resignations are at an all-time high.3Bhardwaj A. COVID-19 pandemic and physician burnout: ramifications for healthcare workforce in the United States.J Healthc Leadersh. 2022; 14: 91-97Crossref PubMed Scopus (8) Google Scholar Physician shortages in the United States and around the world have also peaked. Ancillary clinical staff are suffering from the same conditions. Digital technologies in clinical medicine and in health care delivery are needed now more than ever. Cook et al,4Cook D.J. Augusto J.C. Jakkula V.R. Ambient intelligence: technologies, applications, and opportunities.Pervasive Mob Comput. 2009; 5: 277-298Crossref Scopus (755) Google Scholar described ambient intelligence as a presence of digital environment that is sensitive, adaptive, and responsive to the presence of people. Ambient intelligence integrates human-centric computer interfaces, secure systems and devices, and technologies that assist with sensing, reasoning, and acting.4Cook D.J. Augusto J.C. Jakkula V.R. Ambient intelligence: technologies, applications, and opportunities.Pervasive Mob Comput. 2009; 5: 277-298Crossref Scopus (755) Google Scholar As illustrated in Figure 1, ambient intelligence works at the intersection of Internet of Things devices and sensors placed in the user’s surrounding environment, pervasive computing, AI, machine learning, and human-computer interaction. In addition to machine learning, ambient intelligence also uses knowledge graph–based technologies.5de Vargas M.F. Pereira C.E. Ontological User Modeling for Ambient Assisted Living Service Personalization. Springer, 2017Crossref Scopus (1) Google Scholar Ambient sensing exists as the result of the use of various ambient sensors, such as video cameras, depth, thermal, radio, acoustic, and wearable sensors (eg, in smart watch). The perception data from the ambient sensors, when integrated with various AI solutions, can help to design early warning systems to prevent adverse safety events, improve and support decision making, provide clinical workflow and operational efficiencies, and relieve administrative burden for physicians. Ambient AI applications in health care delivery, as shown in Figure 2, can be leveraged at various touch points, such as outpatient clinics, hospital, and patient’s home/daily living space to augment health care delivery, by benefiting patients and their direct care providers/family members, clinical care providers, and enterprises. Ambient clinical intelligence: This is a conversational AI application that integrates ambient voice sensing technology and virtual assistant function, to automate and streamline the visit documentation into the electronic health record (EHR), and data retrieval from the EHR by a physician, during a patient’s clinic encounter.6Nahar J.K. Lopez-Jimenez F. Utilizing conversational artificial intelligence, voice, and phonocardiography analytics in heart failure care.Heart Fail Clin. 2022; 18: 311-323https://doi.org/10.10