Next IT, a Spokane, Washington-based firm with over a decade of experience in developing virtual assistant technology, is bringing Siri to the healthcare industry with a specialized help desk solution that offloads patient requests to let medical professionals focus on what they do best.

Alme for Healthcare features a sophisticated AI that can automatically respond to common questions via both text and voice prompts. Touting an 96 percent accuracy rate, Next IT says that the tool enables healthcare providers to create custom assistants that ensure that patients follow treatment plans and effectively communicate their conditions.

SiliconANGLE Editor-in-Chief Mark “Rizzn'” Hopkins got an early look at the app and described it as a “well formed and well thought out virtual assistant,” noting that “a lot of the building blocks for this technology are low hanging fruit in today’s mobile landscape. They’ve thought through a lot of the business cases, though, and although I didn’t get a demo of what the operator side of the equation looked like, it did seem like the ‘industrial internet’ side of things was at least head and shoulders more sophisticated than any other solution I’ve been shown.”

While Next IT is applying AI to improve patient care, a Japanese firm called The Plant is utilizing the technology to help workers become more productive. Dubbed Qortex, the company’s solution filters messages based on importance to help teams work without being overwhelming by “extraneous corporate noise.”

Qortex sports a built-in chat client, a to-do list that lets managers assign and set deadlines on tasks, and an Acknowledgments feature that asks email recipients to confirm that they read your message. Other notable capabilities include an Instant Presentation tool that can be used to automatically turn any piece of information into a presentation.