SK Telecom (CEO Yoo Young-sang) announced on the seventh that the cumulative variety of rescue cases linked to the ’emergency SOS’ service based on artificial intelligence (AI) speaker NUGU has exceeded 500.

The AI ​​care service is developed to support the day by day lifetime of the elderly living alone and provides emergency rescue in addition to information delivery, schedule management, and cognitive ability improvement. Even when it’s difficult to get help from others, resembling late at night or during holidays, someone is connecting the speaker to the control service.

SKT is providing AI care services for about 17,000 elderly people in 93 local governments and institutions across the country, and when users are in an emergency, they will call 119 by saying “Aria, save me” or “Aria, emergency SOS.” I told the control center that I used to be helping them to request help.

In line with SKT’s tally, about 6,000 emergency SOS calls occurred from April 2019, when the service began, to early May this 12 months, and amongst them, 119 emergency rescue calls exceeded 500 times.

Out of a complete of 500 cases of emergency SOS calls, 52% were rescue cases related to emergency symptoms resembling cerebral hemorrhage, low blood pressure, acute abdominal pain, acute headache, etc., and 25% were cases of aggravation of underlying diseases resembling asthma, hypertension, disc herniation, falls, slips, etc. 20% of respondents requested help for safety accidents that occurred in day by day life.

By time of day, 74% of the cases were received between the evening and early morning hours, when it’s difficult to get help from others, and it was confirmed that there have been 3 times as many cases as during working hours (10-18:00).

When it comes to season, emergency rescue requests were the best at 19% of the whole in the course of the change of seasons in autumn (September-October). This was followed by emergency rescue in the course of the changing seasons of spring (end of February to April, 15%), cold season (December to February, 15%), and warmth wave (July to August, 12%).

As well as, SKT can also be providing a function that analyzes negative verbal expressions resembling feelings of isolation or depression through AI speakers and connects them with visiting nurses or psychological counselors. Within the last 3 years, about 800 psychological counseling sessions have been provided.

SK Telecom signed a business agreement with the Ministry of Health and Welfare on the eighth for the ‘Love for the Elderly Living Alone Project’ and plans to supply the ‘Nugu Bizcall’ service to local governments and comprehensive support centers for the elderly living alone for the following eight months.

NUGU Bizcall is used to examine the welfare of care recipients affected by insomnia, loneliness, and underlying diseases, and to discover the needs of welfare services resembling the recipient’s discomfort.

SKT plans to contribute to minimizing the security gap for the elderly living alone to be cared for by upgrading AI and large data-based services resembling AI care service and NUGU Bizcall.

“With the continual expansion of AI care services, the variety of cases of saving precious lives is increasing every 12 months,” said Lee Jun-ho, head of ESG promotion at SK Telecom. “We are going to proceed to make various efforts to strengthen the social safety net and protect individual happiness.”

Reporter Juyoung Lee juyoung09@aitimes.com