APPLE USED AI TO UNCOVER NEW BLOOD PRESSURE NOTIFICATION FEATURE IN WATCH

Apple Watch Series 11 models that go on sale last week can notify users that they may have high blood pressure, in a feature the company has powered using artificial intelligence rather than a blood pressure monitor.

- STEPHEN NELLIS

The notification feature, which will work with models back to the Apple Watch Series 9, came about from applying AI models to existing sensor data, said Sumbul Ahmad Desai, Apple’s vice-president of health.

Apple had been interested for years in trying to identify high blood pressure. The condition affects more than 1 billion people globally, but half of the adults with it go undiagnosed, in part because the standard for measuring blood pressure — a cuff called a sphygmomanometer — is something many people encounter only at a doctor's office.