Smart Speakers Like Alexa and Google Assistant Could Tell if You Have Parkinson's
Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content.
A new AI-powered, speech-based screening tool could help people assess whether they are showing signs of Parkinson's disease at home.
Developed as part of a study by University of Rochester computer scientists, the web-based test asks users to recite two pangrams, short sentences using every letter of the alphabet.
In just seconds, the AI can analyze the voice recordings to look for subtle patterns linked to Parkinson's—with nearly 86 percent accuracy.
The researchers believe such a tool could be implemented as a feature in popular speech-based interfaces like Amazon Alexa or Google Home (with users consent).
Parkinson's is typically diagnosed by specially trained neurologists through a combination of examinations, brain imaging and family history.
While the new tool is not intended to be a replacement for a clinical diagnosis, the researchers see it as a fast, low-barrier and accessible way to flag people who might have the disease and encourage them to seek thorough clinical evaluation.
Man connecting Alexa-like device to phone at home.
Man connecting Alexa-like device to phone at home.Around 1.1 million people in the U.S. are living with Parkinson's disease, expected to rise to 1.2 million by 2030, according to Parkinson's Foundation.
Nearly an estimated 90,000 people are diagnosed across the country each year, making it the second-most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer's. While incidence increases with age, some four percent of people are diagnosed before 50.
"There are huge swaths of the U.S. and across the globe where access to specialized neurological care is limited," said Rochester computer science professor Ehsan Hoque in a statement.
"With users' consent, widely used speech-based interfaces like Amazon Alexa or Google Home could potentially help people identify if they need to seek further care."
Most people living with Parkinson's in the U.S. seek their care from neurologists, with approximately 50 percent seeing a community neurologist and 9 percent seeing a movement disorders specialist, a previous Parkinson's Foundation study found.
However, nearly 40 percent of people with the disease do not see a neurologist for their care but see a primary care provider (29 percent) or no provider (11 percent.)
Home speaker device.
Home speaker device.
fabioderby/Getty Images
To train and validate the new tool the researchers collected data from more than 1,300 participants—with and without Parkinson's—across home care settings, clinical settings at the University of Rochester Medical Center and the InMotion Parkinson's disease care center in Ohio.
Using their computer's microphone, participants were asked to read aloud the following sentences: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The dog wakes up and follows the fox into the forest, but again the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog."
By utilizing advanced semi-supervised audio models trained on millions of digital recordings to understand the characteristics of speech, the tool can obtain enough vocal cues from the short sentences to flag warning signs.
"For example, the way someone with Parkinson's would utter sounds, pause, breathe, and inadvertently add features of unintelligibility is different in someone without Parkinson's," explained paper author and computer science master's degree student Abdelrahman Abdelkader in a statement.
The tool was 85.7 percent accurate when tested, providing a strong indication of whether someone may have Parkinson's, according to the study authors.
Woman using Google Nest-like device at home.
Woman using Google Nest-like device at home.As well as speech, some people can display signs of Parkinson's through motor movement tasks or facial expressions. Over the past decade, this has led Hoque's lab to pursue algorithms to combine multiple indicators with state-of-the-art results.
"Research shows that nearly 89 percent of people with Parkinson's have a deformity in their voice that can be indicative of the disease, making speech a strong starting point for digital screening," said paper author and computer scientist Tariq Adnan in a statement.
"By combining this method with assessments of other symptoms, we aim to cover the majority of people through our accessible screening process."
An interactive, browser-based demonstration of the lab's three screening tests, including this new speech test, is available to try out at home here.
Newsweek has reached out to the study authors for more information.
Do you have a health story to share with Newsweek? Do you have a question about Parkinson's? Let us know via health@newsweek.com.
References
Adnan, T., Abdelkader, A., Liu, Z., Hossain, E., Park, S., Islam, M. S., & Hoque, E. (2025). A novel fusion architecture for detecting Parkinson's Disease using semi-supervised speech embeddings. Npj Parkinson's Disease, 11(1), 176. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41531-025-00956-7
Pearson, C., Hartzman, A., Munevar, D., Feeney, M., Dolhun, R., Todaro, V., Rosenfeld, S., Willis, A., & Beck, J. C. (2023). Care access and utilization among medicare beneficiaries living with Parkinson's disease. Npj Parkinson's Disease, 9(1), 108. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41531-023-00523-y
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