Domeye Vision Completes B2B Transformation: Healthcare Emerges as the Blue Ocean for AI

On April 25, 2016, Domei Vision launched a new product tailored for healthcare service enterprises—the Xiaoyi Medical Robot Customer Service System. Following the May 2015 release of its consumer-oriented product, Domei Xiaoyi, the company completed its strategic transition from B2C to B2B services after one year of development.

From 2C to 2B

Previously, VCBeat reported on Duomei Shijie’s consumer-facing services, “Duomei Xiaoyi Health Assistant: A Reliable Pathway for Seeking Medical Care》article mentions that Duomei Xiaoyi is an AI health assistant that provides comprehensive health services to C-end users, including medical consultations, appointment registration, medication purchase, medical accompaniment, cosmetic and plastic surgery, and beauty, maternal, and infant care.

This strategic pivot from consumer-facing (C-end) to business-facing (B-end) services also represents a major initiative aligned with the prevailing trends in internet-based healthcare.

In 2011, IBM’s supercomputing system Watson competed on the American TV show Jeopardy! and defeated two human champions. In 2016, AlphaGo defeated human player Lee Sedol with a score of 4-1, signaling that the technological singularity of artificial intelligence has arrived. The global AI market was valued at $7.45 billion in 2015 and is projected to grow exponentially to reach $18.3 billion by 2020.

In the healthcare sector, statistics from the World Health Report indicate that China’s medical and health resources account for only 2% of the global total, with its per capita availability ranking beyond 100th worldwide. The strain in doctor-patient relationships, coupled with the recent implementation of healthcare reform policies, has created an urgent need in China’s medical environment for multi-channel, intelligent, and specialized service platforms. Medical robots come in various types: classified by application, they include clinical medical robots (for surgery and diagnosis), nursing robots (for temperature measurement, medication dispensing, and ward cleaning), medical training robots (for simulating real-life childbirth scenarios), assistive robots for individuals with disabilities (rehabilitation robots), and medical consultation robots (for answering medical inquiries). Classified by end users, they encompass consumer-facing (C-end) products for the general public and business-facing (B-end) products for enterprises. Classified by the paying party, there are both C-end paid and B-end paid models. An analysis of current willingness to pay for internet services in China reveals that, apart from e-commerce, consumers’ (C-end) willingness to pay for services is generally low. In contrast, enterprises (B-end) are more willing to pay for the services they receive. Therefore, it is predictable that in the coming years, services targeted at healthcare enterprises will represent the next blue ocean for the development of artificial intelligence.

Xiao Yi Medical Robots Can Help Enterprises Reduce Costs by 90%

Categorized by application, Xiaoyi Class I products fall under the category of medical consultation robots. By integrating artificial intelligence technology, these products can efficiently connect with medical resources and address highly repetitive, standardized inquiry and consultation issues across the pre-, intra-, and post-care stages.

Yu Guo, CEO of Xiaoyi Medical Robot, stated that the company’s products are positioned as medical consultation robots. With the development of the internet and health markets, users of hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, physical examination centers, and other enterprises increasingly come from WeChat, mobile apps, and various websites. These enterprises need to deploy a growing number of professional customer service staff. However, qualified professionals (such as doctors, nurses, and medical students) are costly to hire and difficult to recruit. A small- to medium-sized institution typically requires 5–20 customer service representatives, serving a registered client base generally ranging from 10,000 to 30,000 individuals, with larger institutions approaching 100,000 clients. How to provide professional, rapid, two-way, and personalized healthcare customer service has become a pressing concern for these institutions, particularly private healthcare providers and public institutions at the primary and secondary levels. This capability will directly determine their competitiveness, survival, and development.

It is understood that Xiao Yi can help enterprises implement robotic doctor consultations, automated customer care, and personalized service marketing, thereby increasing efficiency tenfold, reducing costs by 90%, and significantly enhancing service professionalism. Currently, Xiao Yi supports customer access through multiple channels (WeChat, web, and app) and can be integrated into enterprises’ existing client-side systems, helping businesses retain existing users and acquire new ones. “The product has been well received in the market since its launch. We have already signed contracts with more than 20 enterprises, 80% of which pay annual service fees. We project sales revenue of RMB 10 million this year,” Yu Guo told VCBeat.

Regarding the future development of Xiaoyi Medical Robot, Yu Guo told VCBeat: “After a year of exploration and development, Xiaoyi has transformed into a highly intelligent and mature commercial healthcare robot. Its service scope and potential are vast; it can serve not only C-end sub-healthy individuals and patients but also a large number of B-end healthcare service institutions. In particular, the latter will be Xiaoyi’s primary focus for expansion in the near future.” Characterized by “strong technology and long-term R&D accumulation,” Xiaoyi will fully open up its core technologies to healthcare enterprises in the coming years, providing them with intelligent healthcare solutions and services, thereby becoming a companion and witness to the growth of healthcare institutions.

The market for AI-powered healthcare services is just getting off the ground, lagging slightly behind other sectors. This is primarily due to delays in the development of healthcare robots, such as those capable of automatically answering patient questions in place of specialists, assisting physicians with treatment procedures, and helping healthcare institutions provide patient care. From this perspective, there is currently a scarcity of robotic products on the market that integrate Medical Artificial Intelligence (MAI) and medical knowledge base functionalities.