Ant Group launches AQ for Doctor, bringing an AI-powered workstation to millions of physicians

HANGZHOU, China--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 12, 2026--

Ant Group today officially upgraded its physician platform, Haodf for Doctor, into AQ for Doctor, an AI-powered workstation designed to support physicians across every stage of clinical practice—from online consultations and patient management to clinical decision support and medical research. The platform is fully integrated with Ant Group's flagship AI health app, AQ, which serves more than 100 million users as of August 2026.

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Connecting doctors and patients through one AI platform

"AI will never replace doctors," said Zhang Junjie, Vice President of Ant Group and Head of the Health Business. "But AI can become a trusted assistant for healthcare professionals. Our goal is to build a reliable and practical AI workstation for China's more than five million physicians—helping them work more efficiently while enabling every leading doctor's expertise and experience to reach many more patients."

The integration of AQ for Doctor with the AQ app creates one of the world's first AI platforms built to serve both physicians and patients through a deeply connected AI experience.

The AQ app has already introduced an "AI response + doctor review" model in dermatology, allowing AI-generated health guidance to be reviewed and verified by physicians from leading hospitals whenever users request professional confirmation. The model has since expanded to 16 specialties, including obstetrics and gynecology, otolaryngology (ENT), and others. With AQ for Doctor now connected to the AQ app, patient requests can be matched with available physicians more efficiently, creating a more seamless experience for both doctors and patients.

The upgrade also opens AQ for Doctor to hospitals and healthcare institutions nationwide for the first time, allowing them to establish and operate their own online hospitals on the platform as institutional partners. Previously, only physicians affiliated with Haodf's online hospital could provide online consultations through the platform. Now, hospitals and healthcare organizations can onboard directly, enabling their physicians to manage online consultations, follow-up care, and patient records through a single account and unified platform instead of switching between multiple systems.

One of China's leading women's and children's hospitals, Guangzhou Women and Children's Medical Center, has become the first hospital to join under the new model. The hospital said the partnership will make it easier for patients to access care while enabling the hospital to better coordinate and deploy its high-quality medical resources to serve patients in need.

Helping physicians spend less time on paperwork and more time on patient care

AQ for Doctor introduces two core AI capabilities: the AI Medical Assistant and the AI Doctor Agent, supporting physicians throughout the entire care journey—from consultations and long-term patient management to evidence retrieval and academic research.

For patient management, physicians can create their own AI Doctor Agent on the platform. Available around the clock, the AI agent can conduct pre-visit interviews, answer routine health questions, and support post-treatment follow-up.

Before an appointment, the AI agent gathers relevant patient information, organizes medical histories, and highlights key clinical findings, helping physicians prepare more efficiently. After the consultation, it continues to answer routine patient questions, automatically generates follow-up summaries, and synchronizes them with patients' health records. This enables physicians to extend care beyond the clinic while giving patients more continuous support throughout their healthcare journey.

For clinical decision support, the AI Medical Assistant enables physicians to search medical knowledge instantly through text or voice, delivering free, accurate, and fully traceable evidence-based references.

AQ for Doctor has established a strategic partnership with Wolters Kluwer, a global leader in clinical information and decision-support solutions. By combining Wolters Kluwer’s authoritative medical content, including access to its medical journals, with AQ’s AI capabilities, the partnership will provide physicians with more reliable, evidence-based clinical insights they can trust.

As part of the strategic partnership, AQ for Doctor is also exploring deeper collaboration with UpToDate, Wolters Kluwer’s renowned evidence-based clinical decision support solution. The collaboration aims to further advance the application of trusted AI in healthcare.

At the same time, Ant Health has formed a strategic partnership with DP Technology, a leader in AI for Science. Leveraging the strengths of its Science Navigator platform in deep scientific literature search and evidence-based knowledge retrieval, the partnership will support AQ for Doctor with quality medical scientific data.

Today, AQ for Doctor gives physicians access to more than 60 million medical publications, clinical guidelines, leading medical journals, and over 140,000 drug labels, enabling clinicians to quickly retrieve the latest medical evidence and apply it to both clinical decision-making and research.

Doctors participating in early testing reported that by automating routine tasks such as collecting and organizing patient histories, AQ for Doctor significantly improved efficiency, allowing them to spend more time on complex cases and direct patient care.

As more people turn to AI for everyday health information and services, healthcare providers and physicians are increasingly incorporating AI into clinical practice. As of August 2026, AQ for Doctor has connected more than 300,000 verified physicians. As more hospitals and healthcare organizations join the platform following this upgrade, that network is expected to continue expanding, bringing high-quality medical expertise to even more patients.

About Ant Group

Ant Group is a global digital technology provider and the operator of Alipay, a leading internet services platform in China, connecting over one billion users to more than 10,000 types of consumer services from partners. Through innovative products and solutions powered by AI, blockchain and other technologies, Ant Group supports partners across industries to thrive through digital transformation in an ecosystem for inclusive and sustainable development. For more information, visit www.antgroup.com.

A physician uses AQ for Doctor in their daily work.

Ant Group launches AQ for Doctor, bringing an AI-powered workstation to millions of physicians.

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. futures are pointing higher before the release of key inflation data for July that could provide a better idea of where prices are heading.

Futures for the S&P 500 gained 0.3% Wednesday and futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up 0.1%. Nasdaq futures gained 0.7%.

Rising costs are being closely watched by the Federal Reserve as well as Republicans facing tough midterm elections and millions of Americans struggling with higher prices for everything from groceries to gasoline. Economists expect new data to show to show inflation slipped to 3.4% in July from 3.5% in June.

Cooler inflation could relieve pressure on the Fed to raise interest rates. Higher rates could curb inflation also would drag on the overall U.S. economy by making it more expensive for households and businesses to borrow money. Higher rates also would undercut prices for stocks and other investments.

Shares of cloud computing company CoreWeave surged more than 18% and Super Micro Computer's stock jumped nearly 9% before the market opened on strong quarterly results. CoreWeave more than doubled its revenue as customer demand accelerated in the second quarter. The strong earnings gave a boost to other companies involved in building the physical infrastructure of artificial intelligence data centers including Coherent Corp., Lumentum Holdings and Marvell Technology.

Oil prices are essentially flat Wednesday but sharply higher this week with the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the global oil supply runs, effectively shut down as fighting in Iran continues.

The price of a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, rose 0.19% to $89.08 early Wednesday. U.S. benchmark crude oil ticked up 0.4% to $83.53.

U.S. gasoline prices also edged 2 cents higher over night to a national average of $4.04 per gallon, according to motor club AAA. That's 16 cents higher than at this point last month.

U.S. President Donald Trump said he would seek compensation from Iran for the conflict after Tehran said it would seek payments from the U.S. before it opens the strait.

Meanwhile an attack by Iran-backed Houthi rebels on a vessel in the Bab el-Mandeb strait at Yemen's southern tip has raised concerns that the violence could reignite civil war and further threaten regional shipping routes.

“The renewed hostilities between the US and Iran suggest that a long-term reduction in shipping through the Strait of Hormuz is now the most likely scenario,” said Ben May, director of global macro research at Oxford Economics.

Treasury yields have jumped since the war with Iran because of higher oil prices and worries about inflation. That has sent long-term mortgage rates to their highest levels in a year.

In early European trading, Germany’s DAX rose 0.47% to 26,514.56, while the CAC 40 in Paris fell 0.12%, to 8,705.08. Asian trading was mixed.

The U.S. dollar slipped to 159.16 Japanese yen from 159.22 yen. The euro was down slightly at $1.1537.

AP Business Writer Elaine Kurtenbach reported from Bangkok

A general view shows the New York Stock Exchange, Friday, Aug. 7, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

Currency traders work at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Currency traders watch monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Currency traders work at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)