(Yicai) June 27 -- Ant Group, a leading Chinese financial technology firm, has launched an artificial intelligence health application offering medical and health consultation services.

The AI avatars of almost 200 renowned Chinese doctors are among the medical experts available on the AQ system, Ant announced yesterday.

AQ offers hundreds of AI services, including health education, consultation for medical visits, interpretation of medical test results, and management of health records, with its intelligence derived from the clinical experience of nearly one million doctors from over 5,000 Chinese hospitals.

The doctors' AI avatars, which include Mao Hongjing, chief physician at Hangzhou Seventh People's Hospital, are one of the key highlights of AQ's product offerings, Liu Junwei, AI healthcare general manager of Ant, told Yicai. The company used 100 hours of doctor-patient conversation data from Dr. Mao and his clinical experience, medical literature, and guidelines to train his AI avatar, Liu pointed out.

Dr. Mao has nearly 30 years of medical experience, with his skills including using medications and psychological techniques to treat patients with depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, and others.

Consumers can receive pre- and post-consultation guidance from Dr. Mao's AI avatar on AQ, while patients with noticeable symptoms can access direct online consultations with Dr. Mao through the system and even make appointments for in-person visits if necessary.

Ecosystems and data are becoming key advantages for major internet companies such as Ant as they enter the AI healthcare sector.

AQ is built on the technical foundation of Ant's medical large language model, Yicai found. It focuses on pre- and post-consultation stages by mimicking real doctors' follow-up questions about patients' conditions and offers suggestions to improve their health based on the provided information. The system can read images, including those of skin diseases, to assess the condition.

In addition, by connecting to public health management devices, AQ can provide personalized health recommendations based on users' real-time blood sugar, sleep, and exercise data.

However, despite significant investments, Ant remains cautious about commercializing AI healthcare products. The company's doctor recommendation ranking will not be affected by commercial factors, said Vice President Zhang Junjie.

Editor: Martin Kadiev