Bengaluru-based start-up Beyond has made headlines with its AI creation, August AI, which recently achieved exceptional results in critical medical exams. August AI successfully passed India’s National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test for Post Graduation (NEET PG) and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences Postgraduate (AIIMS PG) exams with an impressive score of 74.5 percent.
Not stopping there, it also excelled in the US Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) with a score of 94.8 percent, surpassing well-established AI systems like OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Google’s MedPaLM.
Anuruddh Mishra, Co-Founder & CEO of Beyond, lauded August AI’s accomplishments, highlighting its profound grasp of medical knowledge. This achievement is attributed to the innovative approach taken by August AI, which combines large language models (LLMs) with a custom orchestration layer. The result is an educational tool that facilitates personalized and natural conversations, resembling everyday messaging platforms like WhatsApp.
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August AI’s unique selling point lies in its understanding of the Indian healthcare system and its focus on India-specific data. Mishra emphasized that the platform prioritizes user privacy, ensuring that all conversations remain confidential.
While August AI can provide preliminary information regarding symptoms, it does not offer diagnoses. This stance aligns with the consensus among experts, including Srinivas Chilukuri from Apollo Proton Cancer Centres, who emphasized that AI should complement, not replace, qualified healthcare professionals.
Mishra also acknowledged the challenges ahead, particularly in terms of cost and data collection, in the development of Generative AI for healthcare. He called for support from the healthcare ecosystem, government, technologists, and investors as they aim to expand and enhance the platform’s capabilities.
This is not the first time an AI has passed a medical exam. In the beginning of this year, ChatGPT, Open AI’s artificial intelligence dialogue chatbot, passed all three divisions of the United States Medical Licensing Examination, according to experts.
