Did you know that artificial intelligence (AI) technology first sounded the alarm on COVID-19?

An algorithm developed by BlueDot, a Canadian AI firm, scoured news reports and airline ticketing data to detect the outbreak on Dec. 31, 2019 in China.

On the same day, HealthMap, a Boston Children’s Hospital website using AI, spotted a news report of a new type of pneumonia in Wuhan, China, and alerted global health officials. HealthMap was also the first to notify Chinese health officials that COVID-19 was expanding outside of China.

Over the past decade, U.S. tech firms have made significant advancements in AI, and smart robots are making it far easier to automate tasks and functions across industries.

AI’s ability to efficiently analyze large, diverse and unstructured data sets is now proving beneficial in the fight against COVID-19.