Aiyisheng Technology Secures Tens of Millions in Funding Within a Year, Targets Smart Elderly Care Market with AI-Powered Clinical Interaction Systems

On July 17, the Conference on Promoting Innovation in AI-Enabled Medical Devices was held in Beijing, where the AI Medical Device Innovation Cooperation Platform was officially established. The national emphasis on artificial intelligence stems from its ongoing integration and convergence with traditional industries. Among these, the healthcare sector has become one of the most extensively applied areas for AI technologies, and the prospects for AI applications in healthcare remain highly promising.

The importance of artificial intelligence (AI) technology is self-evident. Its application in the healthcare industry has already covered multiple areas, yet its use in clinical interactions remains relatively limited. AiYiSheng closely aligns with the needs of hospitals and physicians, leveraging AI technology to explore intelligent upgrades for hospital operational scenarios. By developing a series of integrated hardware and software solutions, it provides comprehensive intelligent upgrade services for hospitals.

Dr. Tao Kun, Co-founder of AiYiSheng, stated, “The application of AI technology to clinical interactions will significantly enhance physicians’ work efficiency and improve the quality of medical services in hospitals.”

Tao Kun introduced, “Ai Yisheng has currently established cooperative relationships with multiple leading hospitals in the industry, including Xiangya Hospital of Central South University and Fuwai Hospital. It has developed a series of products oriented toward clinical applications, such as the perioperative intelligent interaction system, physician workstation intelligent interaction system, nurse station intelligent interaction system, intelligent medical history collection, and intelligent triage system.”

iMedVoice was established on December 30, 2016, and its founding team has strong ties to Tsinghua University. Co-founders Tao Kun and Lv Hairong were classmates at Tsinghua University, and company advisor Jiang Rui is an associate professor at Tsinghua University.

Tao Kun introduced, “The company’s core executives and technical developers largely hail from globally renowned IT companies and research institutions. Our team includes scientists from IBM Research, chief scientists of China’s National 973 Program, senior artificial intelligence engineers from Baidu, and designers dedicated to delivering exceptional user experiences. We are committed to leveraging artificial intelligence as the core technology to create a comfortable healthcare service experience.”

Recalling his entrepreneurial journey, Tao Kun stated, “My decision to launch a startup in the medical AI field was largely encouraged by my classmate, Lv Hairong. At that time, he served as Vice President at a publicly listed healthcare company and possessed extensive knowledge of both the healthcare industry and artificial intelligence. Hairong introduced me to another co-founder, Zhao Ming, who is now our company’s CEO. A graduate of Peking University, Zhao Ming has rich experience in building big data platforms, while I have accumulated years of expertise in AI algorithms. Together, we formed a complementary technical partnership. We recognize that AI technology is evolving rapidly, with fast-paced product iterations. However, the healthcare sector remains relatively traditional; hospitals typically adopt IT upgrades and AI applications through a slow, exploratory process, often lagging behind current technological advancements. The level of intelligent transformation in most hospitals is still in its early stages. There is significant room for improvement and upgrading through AI technologies, whether in diverse clinical scenarios for physicians or various patient-facing service contexts. Therefore, we decided to leverage our respective strengths to help hospitals and physicians address these challenges.”

Tao Kun stated, “The Ai Yi Sheng team has independently developed multimodal interaction technology, transforming traditional methods of interactive applications in healthcare informatics. Designed specifically for the medical industry, Ai Yi Sheng’s multimodal interaction technology primarily employs contactless operational modalities—such as speech recognition, gesture recognition, image recognition, and video recognition—enabling healthcare professionals to freely choose natural language or gestures to interact with terminal systems, thereby making information access more effortless and convenient.”

Take the perioperative intelligent interaction system as an example. During surgery, physicians must wear gloves throughout the procedure and operate within a sterile environment. To access information, they traditionally need to perform hand disinfection before reviewing data, which prolongs surgical duration and increases both procedural risks and the likelihood of infection. In contrast, the perioperative intelligent interaction system leverages technologies such as speech recognition, gesture recognition, and virtual screens to enable human–machine interaction. Physicians can retrieve desired information via voice commands or gestures without physically touching any screen. Tao Kun stated, “The perioperative intelligent interaction system addresses information exchange challenges for medical personnel in the operating room environment, eliminates the drawbacks associated with contact-based operations, frees surgeons’ hands, and turns the science-fiction concept of touchless control into reality.”

Ai Yisheng’s Perioperative Intelligent Interaction System integrates technologies such as 3D reconstruction, multi-screen film comparison, and inter-departmental surgical consultation. It enables integrated control of equipment and video signals within the operating room, thereby creating a more efficient and safe surgical environment. The 3D reconstruction technology allows for the magnification and rotation of sequential patient images from CT and MRI scans, including visualizations of blood vessels and nerves. The multi-screen film comparison technology facilitates the side-by-side display of data information such as images, medical imaging, and electronic medical records, enabling physicians to easily compare and analyze clinical data.

Aiyisheng not only provides an intelligent perioperative interaction system, but also offers a physician station intelligent interaction system for hospital management, a nurse station intelligent interaction system for ward management, and an intelligent triage system for hospital services. These intelligent systems all leverage Aiyisheng’s three core technologies: the natural language interaction engine, the acoustic interaction engine, and the emotion and gesture interaction engine.

“The Physician Station System helps physicians consolidate departmental patient data and display patient conditions by category, bringing significant convenience to both physicians and hospital management. The Nurse Station System collects timely, reliable, and comprehensive clinical information, reducing nurses’ workload while enabling them to provide higher-quality care to patients,” stated Tao Kun. “The Intelligent Interaction System can enhance hospital management efficiency and physicians’ work productivity, thereby facilitating better and faster patient care.”

Tao Kun stated, “Multimodal human-computer interaction technology defines the interaction paradigm for next-generation intelligent products, laying the foundation for the research and development of related hardware, software, and applications. The iYisheng technical team has consistently remained at the forefront of research and application in this field.”

Meanwhile, AiYiSheng has also deepened its expertise in intelligent human-computer dialogue technology, launching smart application systems such as intelligent medical history collection and intelligent triage. Supported by a professional medical knowledge graph, the consultation interaction engine developed around the clinical needs of hospitals can deliver services to patients through various channels, including intelligent robots and smart apps. This not only effectively reduces hospital labor costs but also enhances the standardization of hospital services. By collecting detailed patient medical history information prior to physician consultations through the intelligent medical history collection system, the solution improves physicians' consultation efficiency and provides stronger support for clinical diagnostic decision-making.

Jack Ma once said, “Opportunities are always hidden where people complain. Where complaints are loudest, go solve the problems; the more complaints there are, the greater the opportunities.” iYisheng identified the pain points in hospital intelligence and seized the opportunity to develop an intelligent hospital interaction system, expanding the application of artificial intelligence technology in the healthcare sector with the support of a strong team. In January 2018, iYisheng announced that it had secured tens of millions of RMB in angel investment from Yizhuang Capital and AISpeech. The successful completion of iYisheng’s angel financing round was attributable not only to the superiority of its project and products but also to its robust technical, management, and operational teams, which avoided blind expansion and focused on deepening product development.

Ai Yisheng began its strategic entry into the integrated medical and elderly care market in 2018 by joining the National Key R&D Program project titled “Research on Support Solutions for Integrated Medical and Elderly Care,” which was approved and supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology. This project was jointly applied for by multiple institutions, including Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Chinese PLA General Hospital, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, and Huashan Hospital of Fudan University, with total funding exceeding ten million yuan. Within this project, Ai Yisheng was responsible for developing “Research on Human-Computer Natural Interaction Technologies for Products in Integrated Medical and Elderly Care.” This marks another national-level key project awarded to Ai Yisheng, following its receipt of funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China’s Key Program in 2017.

By continuously exploring the scenario requirements and core technologies for integrated medical and elderly care, Ai Yisheng, in collaboration with the Xiangfu Care Center of Pengzhou People’s Hospital, has launched the “Wireless Sensing-Based Health Monitoring Platform for the Elderly.” This platform can monitor seniors’ respiration and heart rates without requiring them to wear any monitoring devices. It also tracks their daily behavioral status, detects abnormal events such as accidental falls, and automatically triggers alerts. While safeguarding the privacy of the elderly, the system effectively ensures their safety and facilitates management by caregiving staff. Ai Yisheng stated, “We hope this system will make elderly care more refined and human-centered.”

Tao Kun smiled and told the reporter, “As a child, I am also deeply concerned about my parents’ elderly care. With China’s aging population continuously increasing, elderly care has become a societal issue. The country is currently promoting the integration of medical and elderly care services. At Ai Yisheng, we are committed to providing practical application solutions to address these real-world challenges and will continue to advance along the path of integrated medical and elderly care.”

Tao Kun stated, “Ai Yisheng will continue to deepen its expertise in the field of medical artificial intelligence, striving to create greater value through technology. Meanwhile, it will actively explore the health and elderly care sector to develop the integrated market for medical and elderly care services.”