“AI is magical“
says Nataša Miletkovic, AI Expertise Lead at IAV, at the award ceremony. “The industry has been completely turned on its head because of AI.”
In the medical sector, this can be seen in the example of Caresyntax. The Berlin-based company wants to “revolutionize” surgical care in hospitals. Its AI application records data, processes it and makes it available to the medical team in real time. The operation is played through digitally before the first step – or cut – is made.
Before the operation, the Caresyntax AI interviews the patient with a chatbot. The patient’s information is used to prepare the anesthesia and medication. During the operation, all procedures can be pre-planned, simulated and varied on the screen. The medical team is in contact with the digital operating room at all times.
AI makes doctors better
The doctors also benefit from the medical swarm intelligence: Caresyntax uses the data collected anonymously in many partner clinics to train the AI. This enables the system to learn more and more about how to perform the perfect operation – to the benefit of doctors, clinics and, above all, patients.
Caresyntax has already supported more than ten million operations. And yet it believes it is only at the beginning of its journey to digitize the hospital world.
AI that can save lives – the jury awarded Caresyntax the AI User Prize 2024 for this.
The German AI Award of the newspaper “Die Welt” was presented in Berlin at the end of September together with corporate partners DHL, PwC and IAV.
At the award ceremony, IAV expert Nataša Miletkovic is impressed by the possibilities of artificial intelligence. Improving people’s health and safety is also the goal of many applications for automotive engineering.
Five Seconds ahead
For example, IAV uses the interior cameras of cars to check the driver's fitness. If the AI detects signs of fatigue, it intervenes. “Our technology can also see into the future,” says Nataša Miletkovic. Using small signals such as eye movements, the AI recognizes seconds in advance when the driver wants to change lanes, for example, and can check whether it is safe to do so. “Those five seconds can be crucial.”
As a technology partner, IAV helps other companies “to make the leap into the future”, says Nataša Miletkovic. Autonomous and connected mobility can only be implemented in practice with AI.
Take autonomous driving, for example: Self-driving cars need to be trained to be prepared for all possible situations on the road. All possible – that theoretically means an infinite number of scenarios. Of course, this means that autonomous cars would never be on the road. Instead, relevant scenarios must be selected for realistic preparation. And AI helps with this selection: in a method developed by IAV, artificial intelligence recognizes which scenarios are necessary for training and which can be omitted – saving a great deal of time and money.
80% faster thanks to AI
Overall, AI makes the entire development process in the automotive industry faster and more efficient, says Nataša Miletkovic. The use of artificial intelligence and virtualization can save up to 80 percent of time when testing functions, for example – speed is a key factor in competition.
A corporate culture that promotes curiosity and innovation is essential for this, says Nataša Miletkovic – just like at IAV: “AI is becoming our DNA. We are benefiting from this, as are our customers.”
This also includes the exchange with other companies and research. As a spin-off of the Technical University of Berlin a good forty years ago, IAV has retained its campus spirit and start-up mentality.
Start-up-Prize for brighter AI
Speaking of which, the audience voted the Berlin-based company brighter AI as the best start-up at the AI Award. Its programs for anonymizing faces in videos make it possible to use camera images in public spaces for analyses while protecting data privacy and personal rights.
The software creates irreversible synthetic facial overlays so that individual people can no longer be recognized in the recordings. At the same time, the quality and accuracy of the data for analysis and machine learning are preserved.
Democratization of KI
The Innovation Award went to Björn Ommer, professor in Munich and inventor of the text-to-image software Stable Diffusion. What makes it special: The program is freely available as an open source solution and is thus intended to contribute to a “democratization of AI” – instead of being controlled by a few large players, the “enabling technology” AI should be available to the general public, argues Björn Ommer.
IAV also wants to help ensure that many people benefit from the possibilities of artificial intelligence: with smart engineering solutions – and with its involvement in the German AI Award.
“These are exciting times for AI”, says Nataša Miletkovic from IAV. “I am proud to be part of this journey.”