In Las Vegas, under the din of the Consumer Electronics Show, a company called Binah.ai is testing the stress levels of passerby. One of them, Jared Newman, a reporter for Fast Company, stopped to stare into the lens of the company’s tablet. After 10 seconds, the interface had estimated his heart rate and then his stress level. “It said my stress level was high, which checks out!” he told me.

Israel-based Binah.ai is one of several companies that are using artificial intelligence to gauge a bevy of vital signals over video. The technology is part of a big push to move healthcare out of the doctor’s office and into the home through telemedicine. Binah.ai currently tests for heart rate, stress level, oxygen saturation, respiration, and heart rate variability. The company also has plans to eventually add blood pressure to its roster of services.

How can an algorithm detect all of these vital signs through a video? Binah.ai has implemented a technology called plethysmography, which uses cameras to detect slight changes in facial coloring that indicate pulse. Though Binah.ai declined to explain how it detects the other vital signs due to pending patents, external studies on plethysmography provide evidence that these slight facial color changes can also indicate breathing and oxygen levels.

Researchers around the world have been investigating plethysmography for more than a decade, and it is also used in another growing field called “affective computing,” which uses artificial intelligence to understand a person’s emotional state as a diagnostic tool or as a way for computers to respond in more emotionally intelligent ways. There are no published studies attesting to the accuracy of Binah.ai’s technology, though the company claims prospective clients have tested it against existing medical devices that measure pulse and say it is as accurate. Past studies have suggested that a controlled lighting environment and clear faces (i.e., no beards, glasses, or other obscuring facial adornments) have lead to the best results.

So far, Binah.ai’s technology has been embedded into an app from Japanese insurance agency Sompo that allows drivers to monitor their stress levels while driving. But the company says its primary goal is to bring Binah to traditional healthcare spaces.

“Imagine lining up at a kiosk in a hospital where you can have everything measured without being touched at all,” says Mona Popilian-Yona, a spokesperson for Binah.ai.

