Artificial intelligence technology employed by Tesco is better than healthcare professionals at protecting people from potentially killer allergies, according to a controversial study released today.
UK-based technology startup Spoon Guru, which last year signed up with Tesco to help customers with food allergies and special diets find products on its online grocery platforms, commissioned independent research into how its tool compared with doctors and other healthcare workers.
The study claimed the Spoon Guru machine learning technology was 99.3% accurate when suggesting foods for people with nut allergies.
It said the figure matched the highest level of accuracy achieved by a healthcare professional during the research. However, it said the AI technology made fewer errors (0.2%) in comparison with human healthcare professionals (9.5%).
Author Dr Danielle McCarthy and a team of five additional registered dieticians from the British Dietetic Association sampled 2,000 food products from a database of 96,141 items.
They independently assessed the product’s information and reached a unanimous consensus on the item’s suitability. This consensus formed a benchmark against which the Spoon Guru machine learning model was compared.
Spoon Guru launched in 2015 but went mainstream with its rollout on Tesco’s mobile and online services last year.
It allows customers to filter their food searches covering food intolerances, such as lactose, gluten or nuts, and specific dietary requirements including vegetarian, vegan, low fat and low salt.
Co-founder Markus Stripf told The Grocer the results of the study were a massive boost to the trustworthiness of the new technology. The intention was not to replace humans in the healthcare process but to give them a powerful new tool, he added.
“It’s an incredibly significant report for us,” he said. “We wanted to have something to benchmark our effectiveness against. This study shows that our tools are just as accurate as human healthcare professionals and in fact make less errors.
“But nobody is suggesting we replace healthcare professionals. Rather it shows the huge potential AI has to help healthcare professionals and to become a powerful weapon to help them do their jobs.”
Stripf added: “For Tesco it was incredibly important to be able to show they are working with a trustworthy provider. Our relationship stands or falls on the quality of our recommendations.
“When you are dealing with areas like food allergies, there is zero margin for error.
“Having worked with Tesco since May last year and having made millions of recommendations there have been zero incidents.”
The Spoon Guru boss said he believed the technology was “incredibly scalable” as new technology improves to provide increasingly personalised dietary advice to supermarket shoppers.
AI technology used on websites has become an increasingly competitive battleground for retailers.
In June, Asda introduced a new personalised online nutritional search tool that helps customers with complex diets and nutritional needs find the right foods easily.
In partnership with platform and data provider Foodmaestro, the online service also boasts ‘custom filters’, allowing consumers to filter products by diet, lifestyle, or nutritional choices.
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