The next wave of hearing aids (Spoiler alert: It’s AI!)

From glasses to AirPods, inventors are getting increasingly creative with hearing aids, so it’s no surprise the tech is now buying into the buzzword of the century: artificial intelligence (AI).

Hearing aids use AI to detect falls, identify and eliminate background noise, and translate language for the 15% of US adults (37.5 million) with some trouble hearing, Caroline Dadowski, assistant professor of audiology at Florida’s Nova Southeastern University, told Healthcare Brew. In 2019, 7.1% of adults aged 45 and over used a hearing aid.

She hopes that in the future, AI will make even more of a difference.

“While I’m optimistic about the future of AI and technology in hearing aids, each new release from manufacturers seems to offer only incremental improvements compared to previous devices. I’m still waiting for that big breakthrough,” Dadowski said.

Can you hear me now?

DNNs in healthcare do things like classify medical images and diagnose conditions based on scans. When it comes to hearing aids, DNNs are trained with large datasets of sounds to differentiate between noise and speech.

A March 2024 study in the American Journal of Audiology found that DNN-powered noise reduction is better at filtering out background noise compared to traditional noise reduction techniques that filter using fixed parameters.

Though DNNs, too, have been around for years, they initially required too much computing power to fit on small hearing aid chips.

But as the tech has improved, it’s become possible. In 2021, the first-ever hearing aid embedded with DNN was released, the Oticon More, according to healthcare publication the Hearing Review.

Others, like Sonova and Starkey, have followed Oticon’s lead. ReSound, the flagship brand of global hearing aid manufacturer GN Group , is one of the latest companies to add this type of AI to its toolbox.

In February, the company unveiled ReSound Vivia, a prescription hearing aid that tackles a common complaint: background noise, which the product minimizes to help hearing aid users hear the information they want.

This hearing aid sorts out relevant conversation using directional microphones and a DNN trained on 13.5 million spoken sentences and other background sounds, according to the company’s website.

GN ReSound’s Chief Audiology Officer Laurel Christensen told Healthcare Brew this AI program helps reduce the effort needed to focus on listening, which has been linked to cognitive decline.

Pricey progress

Experts hope hearing aids will be accessible to more people in the future, too. Insurance plans like Medicare, for instance, generally don’t cover the devices right now, though some plans from insurers like Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna, and UnitedHealthcare offer discount programs.

Without insurance, the ReSound Vivia is pricey, starting at $4,298 a pair, according to consumer review website HearingTracker.

While including AI hasn’t significantly increased the cost of hearing aids for consumers, companies typically reserve it for their most expensive models, and it’s usually not worth it for everyone—yet, Dadowski said.

“Unless you have a particularly active lifestyle or frequently find yourself in noisy environments, you may not notice any real difference between the differing hearing aid technology levels,” she said.