MACSO’s artificial intelligence detects respiratory illness in swine
Technology developed by an Auckland-based artificial intelligence and sensor fusion company has shown impressive results in a recent pig farm trial conducted by a large third-party organisation.
MACSO has conducted a number of independent studies in the US and Europe on more than 5,000 pigs and concluded that the solution can detect respiratory illness in swine between 16 hours to six days earlier than human detection using artificial intelligence (AI) monitoring. This detection has led to lower animal death rates and greater profitability of pig farms.
Founder, Saba Samiei says MACSO’s AI captures barn health performance, including how various drugs treat animals and measures the mortality rate of disease in animals. After MACSOs trials in the United States, its early detection reduced the mortality rate to 1.4 percent from 5.7 percent – a significant decrease.
MACSO’s global mission is to bring artificial intelligence and sensor fusion to precision animal health. It aims to detect disease in animals early, prevent disease spread, and significantly reduce animal death rates. It primarily targets swine respiratory health and has been very successful in detecting diseases at a very early stage, Samiei says.
“We used artificial intelligence to detect disease in animals early, prevent major outbreaks and reduce the death rates of animals through this independent study. We are very proud of it.”
“Over time, we are able to show the impact of environmental factors, vaccination plans and drug effectiveness on farm performance,” says Samiei.
MACSO’s AI can comprehensively monitor how diseases in animals subside, if, and when, animals catch the same disease again, what drugs are used – whether it is an antibiotic or an anti-inflammatory – as well as the brand and dosage.
MACSO is also assisting veterinarians to detect sick animals so they can medicate a smaller group and reduce the consumption of antibiotics in animals. Consequently, that means less antibiotic-treated meat is consumed.
“We are now focusing on using audio to monitor swine respiratory health,” Samiei says.
“There’s a huge impact we can deliver in this space alone, as we are now bringing air quality and environmental monitoring into the animal health space. Swine respiratory health is our proof point – once we establish the solution, we will extend our platform to other livestock and companion animals.”
MACSO partners with hardware companies to scale its software and AI through hardware chip sets that can host AI.
“Our partnership with hardware companies will continue, because we’re going to need the power of this hardware to put our software on it. Edge AI is the perfect solution for animal health as many animal farms are in remote areas with limited access to internet connectivity. Edge AI makes our solution secure and private,” says Samiei.
Edge AI refers to the deployment of AI models directly on local edge devices to enable real- time data processing and analysis without reliance on cloud infrastructure.
Samiei emigrated to New Zealand in 2012. After six years of research, studying AI and AI ethics, she founded two AI companies, Comfort AI, which focuses on educating the non- technical audience about AI, and MACSO Technologies, which brings AI to precision animal health.
In addition to her role at MACSO, Samiei’s role at Comfort.AI also focus on raising awareness about AI, helping investors do technical due diligence on AI companies and helping guide companies in leveraging the technology in a strategic, beneficial, and ethical way.
Samiei is also recognised as one of the most innovative women in AI in the Asia Pacific, having been named at number five in the top 10 innovative women in that region earlier this year. Just 5.7 percent of startups have women founders; and Samiei was the sole New Zealander in the top 10.
“What I was very happy and humbled about was that all those ahead of me were people that lead these Fortune 500 companies, so they were from Microsoft, Dell – and then the fifth one was me.”
Samiei was recently invited to represent MACSO at the Kisaco Research Asian Animal Health, Nutrition and Technology Conference in Tokyo, as one of eight selected startups at their innovation showcase.
MACSO is now aiming to raise $4m and has secured soft commitments of approximately $1.4m within the first three weeks of the opening of its latest funding round. This early progress reflects the strong interest and confidence in MACSO’s growth potential, Samiei says.
“Additionally, we have active conversations with a large pipeline of strategic investors, and we’re inviting new investors who are interested in participating in this round to reach out and connect with us to help drive our next phase of expansion and innovation.”
One further milestone Samiei seeks is to establish MACSO subsidiaries outside New Zealand, such as in Europe and in the United States, with fundraising secured from larger investors in overseas markets.
Story by Dave Crampton
