Artificial intelligence (AI) will make a direct and immense impact on the healthcare field. Technology has already improved diagnostic accuracy, drug delivery, and patients’ medical records, and AI will only add to those breakthroughs. AI can mine medical records, design personalized treatment plans, handle administrative tasks to free up medical providers’ time for more meaningful tasks, and assist with medication management.

AI has already made headway in medicine, helping to do everything from processing x-ray images and detecting cancer to assisting doctors in diagnosing and treating patients. In fact, the global AI healthcare market is expected to reach $22,790 million by 2023.

And the general public is on board. According to a recent survey, 47% of people were comfortable with AI assisting doctors in the operating room. More than half of respondents over age 40 were willing to go under the knife with the help of technology, compared with only 40% under age 40. Additionally, six in ten participants (61%) were comfortable with their doctor using data from wearable devices, such as an Apple Watch or Fitbit, to assess their lifestyle and make recommendations based on that data.

So what healthcare areas will AI have an impact on in the next five to ten years?

Mining medical records

In our current age of big data, patient data is valuable. Often times, patients’ files are unorganized and mining their records to extract necessary medical insights can be a great challenge.

David Lindsay, founder of Philadelphia-based start-up, Oncora Medical, realized this struggle in radiation therapy. He and his team built a data analytics platform that helps doctors design sound radiation treatment plans for patients, personalizing each one based on their specific characteristics and medical history.

Virtual healthcare providers

AI is being used to detect emotional health issues as well. x2 developed a mental health chatbot, Tess, that delivers on-demand, psychological support. Tess coaches you through tough times to build resilience, by having text message conversations — in the same way a therapist would. The coping strategies Tess delivers are based on the emotions and concerns you express in your conversations.

Beyond Verbal is another example of a company utilizing AI to track emotional well-being. The emotions analytics company, developed a vocal biomarker to potentially help patients and their providers recognize patterns and better understand their healthcare needs.

Sensly boosts, Molly, a virtual health care assistant which dynamically generates speech, receives images and videos, and offers complete remote monitoring, with support for the common and high-cost conditions.

Drug development

Clinical trials can take more than a decade and cost millions of dollars. AI can play a part in speeding up the process of drug development, along with making it more cost effective.

GSK, a company that researches, develops, and manufactures innovative pharmaceutical medicines, vaccines, and consumer healthcare products, is active applying AI to its drug discovery arm. In fact, it created an in-house AI unit called “Medicines Discovered Using Artificial Intelligence.” In 2017, the company announced a partnership with Insilico, to identify novel biological targets and pathways.

Overall, AI can assist healthcare providers in managing their patients’ care more efficiently. I don’t believe AI will take healthcare jobs, but instead transform them. AI will provide the opportunity for healthcare works to take on higher impact jobs or at least offload their less desirable workload. AI will create growth and introduce more opportunities for the human workforce. It has the potential to automate mundane tasks, allowing humans to spend more time on more important tasks. If they can collaborate with the human workforce in hospitals and doctors’ offices, it will take care of the most important aspect of healthcare — improving patients’ experiences.