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United States and New Zealand based digital human company UneeQ, has launched a free COVID-19 health advisor designed to educate and help prevent the spread of misinformation, particularly among those with limited healthcare and medical literacy. According to the Center for Health Care Strategies, roughly 90 million Americans have low health literacy, including the elderly population that is most vulnerable to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Named Sophie, the digital human is available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week to answer general questions and concerns about the COVID-19 global epidemic in several languages including English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch. She’s able to listen to people’s questions and respond with answers and guidance naturally, through human-like conversation. After receiving a query, she scans databases from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and presents the information in conversational form to the user.
Sophie, a conversational digital human, is part of a new AI workforce being employed by brands around the world to positively impact customer experiences, drive new brand loyalty, and improve overall human interactions. Particularly for mental health, digital humans have been found to negate people’s concerns around emotional embarrassment, including shame or guilt, for asking simple questions to a real person. These emotional roadblocks are natural human characteristics that greatly impede health and medical literacy rates around the world.
“Health literacy has been a long-standing problem around the world, but COVID-19 has really put the spotlight on how misinformation can expose millions. Sophie is able to communicate with people in a way that comes most naturally – using conversation, human expressions and emotional responses to best educate society. By using a combination of voice, visuals and text she can also better serve people with accessibility issues,” said Danny Tomsett, UneeQ Chief Executive Officer.
