Woman conceives a child with the help of a robot in AI powered pregnancy (2025)

The 40-year-old woman from Mexico had difficulty producing eggs and failed to get pregnant via IVF - so 'precise' AI was used with a 'level of accuracy beyond human capability'

The world's first baby to be conceived by a sperm-injecting robot has been born.

The child's mum, 40, had struggled to get pregnant using IVF and in the end was recruited by researchers for a unique procedure involving artificial intelligence (AI). Normally, one method of IVF is intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) where a single sperm cell is injected into mature eggs in a lab dish.

This has been a popular way for IVF ever since it was developed in the 1990s as, in male infertility cases, it means the sperm don't have to swim to reach an egg. A resulting embryo can then be inserted into the uterus.

An alternative method - but less precise and therefore less successful - for fertilising eggs is to mix them with sperm in a lab dish. However, ICSI can also fail due to human error as well.

ICSI procedures, individually injecting sperm into eggs, are carried manually by skilled embryologists using microinjection systems. Studies have found that performance ICSI embryologists can vary significantly.

Jacques Cohen at Conceivable Life Sciences, a biotech company in New York City, told New Scientist: “They become tired and distracted sometimes, just like everybody else in most professions, so errors happen that can reduce [the] odds of fertilisation and births."

With this in mind, Dr Cohen and his colleagues developed a machine that can perform the 23 key steps required for the standard ICSI procedure. It is then operated independently by AI control or by pressing a button.

The machine using an AI model to select the healthiest sperm cells for fertilisation, based on their appearance, and then makes the sperm easier to pick up by immobilising them after zapping their tails. The sperm is then injected into eggs that have already been collected.

Lead engineer Professor Gerardo Mendizabal-Ruiz, said: "With AI, the system autonomously selects sperm and precisely immobilises its midsection with a laser ready for injection - executing this rapid, precise process with a level of accuracy beyond human capability."

AI positions the sperm cell in the injection pipette and jabs it into the egg. This type of ICSI system is the only one to automate every single step of the microinjection procedure, with further sperm--handling steps and selection carried out by AI.

Dr Cohen said that automation of the ICSI process "represents a transformative solution that promises to enhance precision, improve efficiency, and ensure consistent outcomes." This removes the burden from embryologists and reduces variability in human performances.

Researchers found a woman referred for treatment with donor eggs at an IVF clinic in Guadalajara, Mexico, following an earlier unsuccessful IVF attempt. She had difficulty producing eggs, so a donor one was used as her partner's sperm couldn't swim properly.

Five eggs were fertilised using automated ICSI and three served as controls with standard manual ICSI. The scientists operated the machine remotely from the Guadalajara clinic and New York and gave commands via a digital interface to perform each of the 23 micro-injection steps for each egg.

The entire procedure took an average of 9 minutes 56 seconds per egg - just a little longer than routine manual ICSI because of its experimental nature. But Professor Mendizabal-Ruiz added that they "expect to reduce procedure time significantly".

Four of the five injected eggs in the automated system reached normal fertilisation and all three in the manual control group. While one of the AI-produced embryos was inserted into the woman’s uterus but it failed to develop.

The second resulted in the healthy birth of a baby boy. Joyce Harper at University College London described the study as exciting but told the publication that larger studies that randomly assign couples to undergo either the automated or the manual lCSI procedure are needed to establish whether this new approach leads to more successful births.

Automated IVF is also unlikely to be widely used for for now due to its high costs, she noted. as it's much more expensive, she added. But Dr Cohen said that the cost of the procedure will likely reduce as the method is refined over time.