AI-Powered Hearing Aid Wins Two 2019 CES Innovation Awards

Oticon Kaizn, the world’s first personal AI assistant for your ears, has received a 2019 CES Best of Innovation Award in the Software and Mobile Apps category, and has been named a CES Innovation Honoree in the Tech for a Better World category. The new, AI-powered tool brings to fruition the promise of personalized, human-driven hearing healthcare for hundreds of thousands of hearing aid wearers worldwide.

With Kaizn, Oticon, the same company that developed Opn, the world’s first Internet-connected hearing aid, continues to revolutionize hearing care and push the boundaries of hearing aid capabilities. Just as Spotify recommends new songs based on a user’s past listening behavior, artificial intelligence built into Kaizn learns from a hearing aid wearer’s listening preferences, habits, and environments to predict their preferences in a particular sound scenario and automatically adjust their hearing aid settings for an optimized listening experience.

“Oticon is a pioneer in the use of artificial intelligence in the audiology sector, with a long-standing commitment to innovation and excellence in technology that improves hearing and overall quality of life for people with hearing loss,” says Annette Mazevski, Au.D., Ph.D., Manager, Technology Assessment at Oticon, Inc. “With Kaizn, we tap the full potential of data-driven personalized hearing care, using a combination of real-time local data, aggregated ‘big’ data and artificial intelligence to deliver a best sound experience.”

Kaizn collects and analyzes data about an individual’s hearing aid use and listening environments to learn their behaviors and hearing preferences, and ultimately provide real-time hearing aid recommendations and adjustments. The AI-powered tool communicates with hearing aid wearers at key moments to learn their “intent” or what they want to gain from different sound environments. For example, Kaizn will recognize when a hearing aid wearer enters a noisy environment, like a loud restaurant, and will contact the wearer, via a push notification, to ask whether they need “focus” or “comfort” in the scenario. Kaizn will then adjust the user’s hearing aid settings to reflect that preference. Over time, Kaizn can automate adaptive changes based on the user’s feedback/validation and adjust the user’s Opn hearing aid settings automatically when they enter similar noise environments.

“Kaizn will support hearing care professionals in their efforts to engage and encourage patients to become active partners in their hearing healthcare,” explains Donald Schum, Ph.D., Oticon Vice President of Audiology. “This ever expanding, ever improving AI-based solution and system will allow hearing care professionals to provide continuous added value that enables patients to optimize the choices they make daily that affect their hearing health and overall well-being."