AI has proven successful in monitoring the outbreak of the coronavirus

Metabiota, an AI-driven company, has successfully made correct predictions regarding the spread of the coronavirus to areas such as Hong Kong about one week before the authorities detected new cases in the area.

Metabiota has the idea that “we can’t eliminate epidemics but we can minimize their impact”. Metabiota is especially targeting the insurance and reinsurance industry by offering to model the potential losses of a company based on different scenarios. In that way, the insurance industry can better quantify their exposure and manage their earnings in the event of an outbreak, as well as creating a new product to suit pandemic-related events.

In particular, Metabiota gives the example of South Korea, where the tourism industry suffered a 41% decrease in activity because of the 2015 MERS outbreak, estimating the loss at over $90 million. Now that the world is increasingly connected, epidemic outbreaks are to be more frequent and might become more massive.