“Ark⁺ is designed to be an open, reliable and ultimately useful tool in real‑world health care systems,” said Jianming “Jimmy” Liang, an ASU professor from the College of Health Solutions, and lead author of the study recently published in Nature.

In a proof‑of‑concept study, the new AI tool demonstrated exceptional capability in diagnosis, from common lung diseases to rare and even emerging ones like COVID‑19 or avian flu. It was also more accurate and outperformed proprietary software currently released by industry titans like Google and Microsoft.

“Our goal was to build a tool that not only performed well in our studies but could also help democratize the technology to get it into the hands of potentially everyone,” said Liang. “Ultimately, we want AI to help doctors save lives.”