Evaluation of the Clinical Efficacy and Trust in AI-Assisted Embryo Ranking: Survey-Based Prospective Study

Abstract

Background: Current embryo assessment methods for in vitro fertilization depend on subjective morphological assessments. Recently, artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a promising tool for embryo assessment; however, its clinical efficacy and trustworthiness remain unproven. Simulation studies may provide additional evidence, provided that they are meticulously designed to mitigate bias and variance. Objective: The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the benefits of an AI model for predicting clinical pregnancy through well-designed simulations. The secondary objective was to identify the characteristics of and potential bias in the subgroups of embryologists with varying degrees of experience. Methods: This simulation study involved a questionnaire-based survey conducted on 61 embryologists with varying levels of experience from 12 in vitro fertilization clinics. The survey was conducted via Google Forms (Google Inc) in three phases: (1) phase 1, an initial assessment (December 23, 2022, to January 22, 2023); (2) phase 2, a validation assessment (March 6, 2023, to April 5, 2023); and (3) phase 3 an AI-guided assessment (March 6, 2023, to April 5, 2023). Inter- and intraobserver assessments and the accuracy of embryo selection from 360 day-5 embryos before and after AI guidance were analyzed for all embryologists and subgroups of senior and junior embryologists. Results: With AI guidance, the interobserver agreement increased from 0.355 to 0.527 and from 0.440 to 0.524 for junior and senior embryologists, respectively, thus reaching similar levels of agreement. In a test of accurate embryo selection with 90 questions, the numbers of correct responses by the embryologists only, embryologists with AI guidance, and AI only were 34 (38%), 45 (50%), and 59 (66%), respectively. Without AI, the average score (accuracy) of the junior group was 33.516 (37%), while that of the senior group was 35.967 (40%), with P < .001 in the t test. With AI guidance, the average score (accuracy) of the junior group increased to 46.581 (52%), reaching a level similar to that of the senior embryologists of 44.833 (50%), with P =.34. Junior embryologists had a higher level of trust in the AI score. Conclusions: This study demonstrates the potential benefits of AI in selecting embryos with high chances of pregnancy, particularly for embryologists with 5 years or less of experience, possibly due to their trust in AI. Thus, using AI as an auxiliary tool in clinical practice has the potential to improve embryo assessment and increase the probability of a successful pregnancy.