The French tech startup Alan In a press conference, it announced three product updates. While it is best known as a health insurance company, the startup has always tried to offer more than insurance coverage. It wants to create a super app for everything related to healthcare.
For example, Alan allows you to ask a doctor a question and get an answer in about 15 minutes. This feature has been active for the past four years.
The next logical step is to leverage AI for medical conversations. Alan is adding a virtual assistant called Mo. It is currently directly linked to the feature that allows chatting with doctors.
“On the one hand, we increasingly want to be responsible for our own health. On the other hand, our healthcare system is largely reactive and therefore under constant pressure,” said Alan’s head of AI, Antoine Lizée.
However, an AI chatbot is prone to hallucination. And when working in the healthcare industry, you shouldn’t give dangerous advice or misdiagnose a patient. This problem has been in the news lately with AI-based medical transcriptions: eight out of 10 audio transcriptions suffered from some level of hallucination, according to a study by a University of Michigan researcher.
Alan’s guardrails are twofold. First, using the AI-powered chatbot is entirely optional. “Mo rephrases my question, introduces himself, and asks me if I want to start with Mo or if I want to speak to a doctor,” Lizée said.
Secondly, a doctor checks Mo's responses after 15 minutes. They can confirm the doctor's advice or correct some things that have been said in the conversation. Patients receive a notification with a message to tell them the doctor's opinion about the conversation with the AI.
In the past few weeks, there have been 900 conversations between Alan and Mo users. But given that 680.000 people are currently covered by Alan's health insurance products, Mo will quickly become a widely used healthcare-related AI chatbot. So it will be interesting to see how people react to this new feature and whether Alan will make some adjustments over time.
While Mo is primarily a chatbot for now, the company plans to add memories and personalization features to make it more proactive and less reactive. “This is just the beginning. Our vision for Mo goes further. Our vision is to make it a health companion that understands the person’s context and health history,” Lizée said.
Online store and gamification
In addition to AI features, Alan introduced a mobile store where people can find dietary supplements, sports accessories, baby-related items and other health-related products.
“It’s a curated selection of health and wellness products to enhance your daily life,” said Mélanie Alsberghe, Alan’s product manager. “We prefer French brands that share our high standards and values. And we have negotiated preferential rates for our members.”
This seems to be the first step in a larger project. While online pharmacies are not very common in France due to regulatory and logistical hurdles, Alan could be well positioned to offer over-the-counter medicines and similar products in the near future.
Finally, Alan is launching Alan Walk, a gamification feature with a self-explanatory name. If you opt for Alan Walk, the app will record steps; it uses either the built-in pedometer function on your phone or your smart watch.
Alan Walk has been designed as a feature to combat sedentary lifestyle. Steps help you achieve certain goals. You unlock berries, a virtual currency, with each goal.
“You can then exchange your berries to donate to charity, get discounts in the Alan Shop or customize your avatar,” said Alan product manager Antoine Moulet. The avatar is visible on a leaderboard that is shared with all friends.
“For us, it’s about improving this integrated experience between health insurance, prevention and access to healthcare,” said Alan co-founder and CEO Jean-Charles Samuelian-Werve.
Alan recently raised a $193 million funding round at an impressive valuation of $4.500 billion. After France, Belgium and Spain, the company announced plans to expand into Canada. For that country more specifically, Alan is the first health insurance company in almost 70 years.
