A diagnostic system based on "multi-agents"
Microsoft has announced the development of an artificial intelligence-based diagnostic tool that the company claims is capable of diagnosing medical conditions with an accuracy up to four times higher than human doctors. The system, named Diagnostic Orchestrator, relies on multi-agent AI technology to simulate the clinical reasoning process followed by physicians, starting from analyzing symptoms and medical history, all the way to ordering tests and arriving at the final diagnosis.
Benchmark test results
The results of this study were published in the scientific journal Science, where the system was tested against human doctors using a special benchmark developed by Microsoft known as SDBench, which relies on medical reports and emergency department data. The results showed a remarkable superiority of the artificial intelligence:
- In cases derived from The New England Journal of Medicine, the system achieved a diagnostic accuracy of about 83%, compared to 36% for general practitioners who used references, and 22% for those who worked without them.
- In emergency cases derived from the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, the system recorded an accuracy of 80% compared to an average of 47% for human doctors.
What changes practically?
This development represents a step toward what Microsoft calls "super-medical artificial intelligence." Unlike traditional artificial intelligence models, the Diagnostic Orchestrator operates as a system that thinks and weighs probabilities, making it closer to the working style of medical experts. However, the company emphasizes that the system is still in the research phase, as it has so far been tested only on past medical cases, which necessitates conducting real-world clinical trials to verify its performance in a hospital environment.
Challenges and next steps
Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI, explained that the company plans to begin testing the system in real clinical environments in cooperation with the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center over the next few months. Despite the technical optimism, strict regulatory and legal constraints remain that must be adhered to before any wide-scale commercial rollout. Microsoft stresses that the goal of this technology is not to replace doctors, but to ease "routine burdens" on them, allowing them to spend more time directly caring for patients.