Epic has stopped waiting for its customers to catch up. That was clear at this year’s Users Group Meeting, where over 20,000 health system leaders gathered in Verona and more than 60,000 joined the General Session online. The company is rolling out new features faster than most IT departments can keep up, which means CIOs now have to face a key question: how, and how quickly, can you actually put Epic’s new tools to use?

Here are three themes that healthcare CIOs are paying attention to from the conference.

From Storefront To Build Shop

Epic’s marketplace has changed names a few times, from App Orchard to Epic App Market and now Epic Showroom, but the idea has stayed the same: it’s a digital storefront where third-party apps connect to Epic’s main system.

The next step is Agent Factory, which Epic is presenting as a no-code platform for health systems to create their own AI agents. A wide release is planned for 2027. The goal is to keep health systems building within Agent Factory instead of looking for outside solutions, similar to what Salesforce and Workday have done with their own platforms.

The strategic logic behind Agent Factory is straightforward, and it's the same logic running through most of Epic's AI push this year. With Penny handling conversational actions, Cogito Assistant producing dynamic visualizations, and Agent Factory giving organizations access to roughly 120 AI features they can adapt to their own needs, Epic's strategy is increasingly clear: why buy separate AI point solutions when the core platform already provides them?

That said, healthcare CIOs weighing where to invest face a real tradeoff. Nobody knows yet what it costs to build inside Agent Factory — developer time, staff hours, token spend, all of it. And nobody knows the ROI either. Only time, and Agent Factory’s own maturity, will tell whether it pays off.

If you’ve followed Epic for a while, you’ll notice a clear trend: features that used to be separate add-ons are now becoming part of Epic’s core system. This approach helped Epic take over areas like scheduling, population health, and clinical communication in the past decade, and now it’s focused on AI. In August 2025, Epic launched Emmie, a patient chatbot; Art, an AI tool for clinicians; and Penny, an administrative AI tool. This year’s UGM added more details about Ergo, an AI assistant that combines all three tools to answer clinician questions right in their workflow.

Ambient AI was the entry point for provider-facing AI adoption in healthcare, and it's already becoming a commodity . That commoditization sets up an interesting renewal cycle over the next few years. Health systems locked into high-priced or underwhelming standalone contracts will have a natural moment to look at Epic when those deals come up. Some will make the jump. But most won't, at least not yet: if the standalone solution is working, CIOs have plenty of other fires to fight without touching something that isn't broken.

Epic isn’t the only company making product announcements. This week, Abridge announced that all providers at its customer organizations can now use its clinical intelligence agent, not just those licensed for the ambient digital scribe. This is a direct response to Epic’s UGM announcements.

At the same time, Epic is moving deeper into areas of the revenue cycle that used to be managed only by payers and clearinghouses. Its new Coverage Requirements Discovery API lets clinicians check payer requirements right in their workflow, instead of using an outside portal. Real-time prior authorization now connects directly with major payers like UnitedHealthcare and Aetna, giving instant access to authorization requirements when orders are entered. This is a significant shift in how health systems will work with their revenue cycle and authorization partners in the future. It will be interesting to see whether health systems shift their budget from third-party eligibility systems to Epic.

EpicOps is also making progress. University of Iowa Health has already started using it for provider scheduling and will soon add nurse and staff scheduling. This change is expected to save millions over several years once old scheduling tools are phased out. Cost accounting will be added in May 2027.

The healthcare ERP space is getting more interesting and complex, depending on what happens with Workday. There are reports this month about a possible Silver Lake buyout. If that happens, it could change how both Epic and Workday customers view the full ERP suite Epic plans for 2029. Most health systems are satisfied with Workday now, but it’s unclear if that will continue under new private-equity ownership.

Epic wants to become the main AI operating system for healthcare, a goal shared by many other digital health vendors. Healthcare CIOs face a tough decision: go all in with their EMR partner or continue working with proven third-party bolt-on solutions.