Amazon gives AI to Harvard hospital in Silicon Valley’s latest health push

Alexa won’t be replacing doctors any time soon, but Amazon says artificial intelligence can help hospitals become more efficient.

The internet giant said on Monday that it is working with a Harvard-affiliated teaching hospital in Boston to test how AI can simplify medical care. This is the latest sign of powerhouse tech companies such as Amazon and Google deepening their reach into America’s $3.5-trillion health-care market.

While the tech industry has high hopes that powerful computing tools can improve diagnoses and treatment, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center’s first projects with Amazon.com Inc are less about sophisticated therapies and more about making day-to-day tasks such as patient scheduling more cost-effective.