AI software developed by Google Health is able to out-perform doctors at spotting breast cancer, it has been found. This could potentially make huge improvements to the statistic that 1 in 8 women a year are diagnosed with breast cancer at some point in their lifetime.

The machines were able to spot signs of cancer on images that the radiologists had missed as well as being able to avoid false flags that can otherwise be interpreted as possible tumors by humans.

Relieving the strain

“This is a great demonstration of how these technologies can enable and augment the human expert,” said Dominic King, the UK lead at Google Health. “The AI system is saying ‘I think there may be an issue here, do you want to check?’”

Clinical trials still need to take place, but if successful, the robots could have a big impact on both the lives of people and the health industry on a whole. Each year, women have false readings of breast cancer as well as many tumors missed.

Google’s AI program works through analyzing mammograms in three different ways before creating a risk score from the results.