Artificial intelligence (AI) tools to boost people\u2019s health gained traction in 2025, promising to personalise medical care, speed up diagnoses, aid the discovery of new medicines, and more.<\/p>\n
Finland, for example, is using AI to train health workers<\/a>, while Estonia is applying it to medical data analysis, and Spain is using AI for disease detection.<\/p>\n Yet research indicates AI shouldn\u2019t replace medical professionals anytime soon: Doctors still outperform AI in emergency settings<\/a>, and AI chatbots struggle to address mental health<\/a>problems and risk spreading medical misinformation.<\/a><\/p>\n There are also major safety concerns<\/a>, with tech and counter-terrorism experts warning that extremists could co-opt AI tools to create bioweapons capable of sparking a pandemic.<\/p>\n Even so, AI is increasingly finding its way into the medical field. Here are five ways it\u2019s changed Europeans\u2019 health and wellbeing this year.<\/p>\n 1. Predicting health risks<\/p>\n Scientists developed an AI model that can predict more than 1,000 medical conditions<\/a>\u2013 including certain cancers, heart attacks, and diabetes \u2013 more than a decade before someone is formally diagnosed.<\/p>\n While it isn\u2019t yet ready to be used in doctors\u2019 offices, the tool could help researchers understand how diseases develop over time.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, other AI tools launched this year to predict whether rare genetic mutations<\/a>will lead to disease, to forecast women\u2019s heart health risks<\/a> by analysing their mammograms, and to use routine medical scans to identify biomarkers of chronic stress.<\/a><\/p>\n 2. Speeding disease diagnosis<\/p>\n In a European first, an AI assistant called Prof. Valmed was certified this year to help doctors with diagnosis and treatment, aided by a vast trove of patient medical data.<\/p>\n Other diagnostic tools are also on the horizon. In the United Kingdom, for example, researchers said an AI-powered stethoscope can detect heart conditions in just 15 seconds<\/a>.<\/p>\n The stethoscope was somewhat too sensitive, given that further testing ruled out heart failure for about two-thirds of patients flagged by the stethoscope. However, the researchers said the tool also found genuine heart problems that might otherwise have gone undetected.<\/p>\n Also in the UK<\/a>, doctors are using AI to save patients weeks of waiting for a prostate cancer diagnosis.<\/p>\n The AI tool analyses medical imaging scans and identifies patients at high risk for prostate cancer, which sends them to the front of the queue for a radiologist to review.<\/p>\n 3. Monitoring patients after operations<\/p>\n A German research team used AI to automate the process of monitoring patients who have had coronary stents implanted into open blood vessels that were blocked due to heart disease. Typically, tracking the healing process is time-consuming and can lead to other complications.<\/p>\n The AI-powered algorithm uses blood vessel imaging to analyse how well patients are healing and is able to quickly distinguish between different healing patterns with a similar level of accuracy to expert clinicians. The researchers said the tool could help standardise stent monitoring and boost heart health.<\/p>\n 4. Fighting antibiotic resistance<\/p>\n Scientists are using AI to fight antibiotic-resistant superbugs, which pose a growing public health threat<\/a> across Europe.<\/p>\n Over the next three years, they plan todevelop an AI model<\/a> to design and test new treatments for drug-resistant bacteria, and will use AI to better understand how the immune system responds to another type of bacteria as they search for an effective vaccine.<\/p>\n 5. Freeing up doctors from admin work<\/p>\n