Startups building AI medical assistants and medical scribes to save doctors time taking notes and creating medical records have mushroomed over the past year. And incumbent companies now want to get in on the action.
On Tuesday, video conferencing company Zoom announced that it has partnered with Suki, one of the leading AI medical scribe providers, to provide doctors with an AI scribe that can take notes about patient encounters on the company's platform. 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.
Suki founder and CEO Punit Soni told TechCrunch that Zoom considered all other AI medical scribe startups before choosing Suki. The startup completed a $70 million Series D earlier this month.
Zoom founder and CEO Eric Yuan told Fortune earlier this month that the company aims to transform from a conferencing company to a company focused on AI tools for the workplace.
Amazon's One Medical also said it is integrating AI tools to help clinicians on its platform save time on administrative tasks. Instead of partnering with startups in the space, One Medical is leveraging Amazon's Bedrock, a service that helps build AI applications, and AWS HealthScribe, an Amazon-developed note-taking platform for clinicians. .
Large health systems and small clinics have found that AI software saves them time in creating the necessary documentation. Investors say revenues for most companies in the space are also increasing rapidly.
Other startups using AI for medical note creation include Abridge (which reportedly raised $250 million at a $2.5 billion valuation), Nabla, and Ambiance Healthcare. Microsoft's Nuance is also a significant player in this market.
The market is crowded, and there is a risk that a general-purpose underlying model could eventually replace AI medical writing startups, but for now investors say there is not enough differentiation between these companies. It is said that there is a change. For example, Abridge serves large health systems, while other companies target smaller clinics.