Oticon Kaizn™, World’s First Personal AI Assistant for Your Ears, Wins Two 2019 CES Innovation Awards

The new, AI-powered tool brings to fruition the promise of personalized, human-driven hearing healthcare for hundreds of thousands

AI-powered tool learns to automate hearing aid settings based on wearer’s preferences and behavior

Denmark, Copenhagen, November 9th, 2018 – 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 Oticon Product Manager, Michael Porsbo. “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 Michael Porsbo. “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."

Oticon will preview Kaizn™ alongside HearingFitness™, a 2018 CES Innovation Award winner, and Oticon Opn™, a 2017 CES Best of Innovation Award winner, at CES 2019 in Las Vegas. Visit booth #43334 in the Sands to learn more.

Why Kaizn™
The name Kaizn™ was inspired by the Japanese word and famous LEAN principle, kaizen. The word itself means “change for better” and implies a continuous process of improvement. This thinking is a key part of Oticon Kaizn™ technology that uses artificial intelligence to continuously learn and better adapt to the user’s needs.

-ENDS-

About Oticon
500 million people worldwide suffer from hearing loss. The majority are over the age of 50 while eight percent are under the age of 18. It is Oticon's ambition that our customers - hearing clinics throughout the world - prefer to use our products for people with impaired hearing. Through passion, dedication and professional expertise, Oticon develops and manufactures hearing aids for both adults and children. Oticon supports every kind of hearing loss from mild to severe and we pride ourselves on developing some of the most innovative hearing aids in the market. Headquartered out of Denmark, we are a global company and part of William Demant Group with more than 13,000 employees and revenues of over DKK 13 billion. www.oticon.global

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