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Startups that build AI medical assistants and medical scribes, which save doctors time that they would otherwise spend taking notes and populating medical records, have been booming over the past year. And incumbents now want to get in on the action.
On Tuesday, video-conferencing company Zoom said it is partnering with Suki, one such AI medical scribe provider, to offer doctors on its platform an AI scribe that can take notes about their consultations with patients. Zoom is used for about 36% of all telehealth visits in the U.S., making it the most popular video-conferencing platform, according to industry intelligence group Definitive Healthcare.
Punit Soni, founder and CEO of Suki, told TechCrunch that Zoom had considered every other AI medical scribe startup before choosing Suki. The startup closed a $70 million Series D earlier this month.
Zoom’s founder and CEO, Eric Yuan, told Fortune earlier this month that the company is aiming to morph from a conferencing company to one focused on AI tools for workplaces.
Amazon-owned One Medical has also said it is integrating AI tools to help clinicians on its platform save time on administrative tasks. Instead of partnering with a startup in the space, One Medical is leveraging Amazon’s Bedrock, a service that helps build AI applications, and AWS HealthScribe, Amazon’s home-grown note-taking platform for clinicians.
Large healthcare systems and smaller doctors’ offices have found that AI software can save them hours spent on keeping up with necessary documentation. Most companies in the space have also seen their revenue tick up fast, investors say.
Other startups that use AI for medical note-taking include Abridge (reportedly raising $250 million at a $2.5 billion valuation), Nabla and Ambiance Healthcare. Microsoft’s Nuance is also an important player in this market.
Although the market is crowded, and there is a risk that general-purpose foundational models may eventually be able to replace AI medical scribe startups, investors say that there’s sufficient differentiation between these companies for now. For example, Abridge serves large medical systems, while others are geared towards smaller medical offices.
Marina Temkin is a venture capital and startups reporter at TechCrunch. Prior to joining TechCrunch, she wrote about VC for PitchBook and Venture Capital Journal. Earlier in her career, Marina was a financial analyst and earned a CFA charterholder designation.
