Utah is piloting an AI system developed by Doctronic to autonomously handle routine prescription refills, aiming to reduce delays and boost medication adherence. But a report from Mindgard AI claiming that there are vulnerabilities in the company’s chatbot underscores the broader challenge regulators and developers face in ensuring healthcare AI systems remain safe and reliable in real-world use.
Katie Jacobs Stanton, founder of Moxxie Ventures, shared some details of how she and her team evaluate healthcare AI startups. She stressed the need for founders with deep industry expertise, differentiated products and realistic distribution strategies.
MedCity News was at the Vive conference and spoke with executives who shared their insights for the healthcare industry.
Epic has unveiled its new “agent factory,” a platform that lets health systems build AI agents that are capable of orchestrating entire workflows across the EHR.
Microsoft launched Copilot Health, an AI model that pulls together users’ medical records, wearable data and trusted health information. The move comes amid a wave of other tech companies announcing healthcare-focused large language models for consumers, including Anthropic, OpenAI and Amazon.
Presbyterian Healthcare Services has rolled out an AI-powered precision care platform to 200 primary care providers, helping them review charts, identify care gaps and make faster treatment decisions. The tool is also designed to maximize each visit, especially for rural patients who travel long distances to receive care.
Ratnakar Lavu, Elevance Health’s chief digital information officer, said the company is using AI to streamline approvals, claims processing and member support while keeping denials under human review.
Zelis highlights how employers, payers, and consumers are integrating digital tools to manage healthcare costs.
Since adopting Arintra’s AI platform for medical coding in 2023, Mercyhealth has seen a 5.1% rise in revenue and a 50% decline in its days in accounts receivable. The AI-powered platform automates coding, spots documentation gaps and generates claims tailored to specific payers.
Health informatics leaders at NYU Langone Health think fully autonomous clinical AI is coming in the next five years or so, with algorithms soon able to manage routine tasks like blood pressure medication titration and diabetic retinopathy screening without human oversight. They argue automation is not just about efficiency, but also a practical and necessary solution to workforce shortages and system inefficiencies.
Anterior raised $40 million to expand its AI platform that automates administrative clinical work for health plans. The system can approve care in minutes rather than weeks, aiming to reduce costs and ease the workload for clinicians and payer staff.
OpenEvidence’s $12 billion valuation reflects investor confidence in its bottom-up, doctor-first model. It has driven rapid adoption, with more than 757,000 clinicians using the startup’s free AI medical search tool regularly. That scale is paired with targeted pharmaceutical advertising that’s already pushed the company past a $100 million revenue run rate.
Arbiter’s Anjali Jameson on hospital and payer alignment.
As providers continue to adopt AI in droves, payers are under pressure to modernize their own administrative operations. Alaffia Health says its clinically grounded AI platform can help health plans reduce waste and risk, a bet investors backed this week with a $55 million Series B funding round.
Investors at Breyer Capital think 2026 could mark a turning point in digital health, as logistics become as important as scientific innovation. They highlighted three key trends shaping the market: shifting biotech constraints from biology to delivery, bottom-up product adoption by clinicians, and a wave of consolidation among AI startups.
As OpenAI and Anthropic move deeper into healthcare, experts say AI chatbots are becoming the new front door to medicine. This shift is shaking things up for some health tech startups, redefining the patient-provider relationship, and intensifying debates over safety, privacy and accountability.
Bessemer Venture Partners predicts that 2026 will be a breakout year for healthcare AI, driven by increased adoption of clinical AI, a new class of AI-first value-based care companies, and the emerging digital health category of data infrastructure tools.
AI rivals Anthropic and OpenAI are both expanding their large language models into healthcare. Anthropic is blending its enterprise and consumer tools in a single platform, while OpenAI is separating its consumer-facing ChatGPT Health from its industry-focused OpenAI for Healthcare. They are both targeting patients, providers and researchers with AI tools for tasks ranging from personal health insights to coding to prior authorization.