Sberbank completes testing of app for COVID diagnostics by cough

The Sberbank Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and SberMedII (a joint project of the laboratory, CoBrain-Analytics and the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology) have launched an industrial version of the Al Resp application, which allows you to determine if a person has COVID-19 by the sound of breathing and coughing. This was reported to RBC by the first deputy chairman of the board of the bank, Alexander Vedyakhin.

Sberbank demonstrated a test version of the application in January. It prompts the user to select symptoms from a list (weakness, fever, cough, diarrhea, rash, dry tongue, sore throat, loss of smell, shortness of breath or no symptoms), cough, breathe loudly and say a certain phrase, after which, using artificial intelligence, reports about the risk of contracting the coronavirus. In February, the beta version of the application appeared in the Google Play and AppStore stores.

As Vedyakhin explained, since then the application has been installed on more than 2,000 devices, the model has been trained on 3,000 depersonalized records, and now the application works with an accuracy of 82%. He noted that since application stores impose certain restrictions on the mention of COVID-19 by developers in the name, icon and description of applications, the description of AI Resp refers to all SARS, but “the model was trained on breathing and cough samples of precisely COVID-19 patients and is designed to identify patterns specific to this particular disease. At the same time, Vedyakhin emphasized that the application is not a diagnostic test: “It cannot replace classic laboratory tests. If you have symptoms of COVID-19, you should consult a doctor.”

Sberbank is not the only one working on the creation of such an application. Last April, billionaire, co-owner of TechnoNIKOL Igor Rybakov invested in the development of the binah.ai mobile application for diagnosing coronavirus infection by face. It captures skin tones on a person's face, pulse, respiration rate, heart rate, etc. The Singaporean company Prytek is responsible for its development and sale. Its founder and CEO Andrey Yashunsky explained to RBC that the company invested in binah back in 2018, at that time the company was valued at $6 million. was about $55 million, said Yashunsky.