Chinese fintech giant Ant Group has pressed ahead with its strategic move into the fast-growing healthcare sector with a major upgrade to its artificial intelligence health app AQ, positioning the platform to work like a fitness companion or a family doctor.
The new features included integration of records from smart devices made by Apple, Huawei and Omron, among others, as well as the creation of health profiles for family members, the company announced on Monday. Ant is the fintech affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding, owner of the Post.
AQ also introduced tools such as health goal setting and smart reminders, enabling it to function like a personal trainer that could “create tailored plans and send daily reminders to help users stay on track”.
With the new “companion” features, the existing question-and-answer function would become “more accurate and personalised” as it had a more comprehensive view of a user’s well-being, Ant said. The Q&A channel, handling both text and image consultations, now answered more than 5 million questions every day, it added.
The company said AQ was not intended to provide medical diagnoses or replace professional doctors. The platform was designed to “help users address common, everyday health questions and support healthy habit formation”, said Zhang Junjie, vice-president for health business at Ant.