Today’s rapid development and widespread adoption of artificial intelligence leaves little doubt that it will redefine every industry it touches. The $5 trillion US healthcare industry is particularly ripe for AI-driven change . That’s saying something for a sector that has historically progressed slowly and been conservative in embracing new technologies. That reluctance has merit given the stakes. Medical practitioners have been more inclined to use tried-and-true practices, rather than risk the uncertainty of emerging innovation.

But that was the past. A new day for healthcare has arrived.

From efficiencies in back-office operations to robotics in complex surgeries, healthtech infused with AI is demonstrating remarkable success on many medical fronts . These new capabilities aren’t subtle. They’re attracting serious capital investment and gradually reconfiguring the healthcare system.

One measure of AI-driven change in medicine is the number of new entrants and the novel ways they’re rethinking nearly every aspect of the industry.

AI Startups Take On Healthcare’s Old Guard

In the US, healthtech, the use of technology to improve medical care and operations, was estimated to be valued at around $225 billion in 2025 and included over 56,000 startups. In the same year, 16 of those startups achieved unicorn status, double the number of the previous year. Continued growth is anticipated and the industry valuation is projected to exceed $1 trillion by 2035.

AI has become an increasingly important driver of this growth.

The entrepreneurs behind these startups are coming to healthcare from remarkably diverse backgrounds. Some are technologists who see a clear opportunity to build a big business and ride the innovation wave and others are former medical professionals who, from experience, feel deeply that there must be better ways to deliver some aspect of the healthcare system.

Dr. Osama Hashmi, a former dermatologist, knew that emerging technologies, particularly AI, could help solve persistent gaps and challenges in the practice of medicine. In 2021, he and his co-founder created Impiricus , a solution designed to deliver the right information at the right time from the pharmaceutical companies to the doctor.

As a practitioner right out of medical school, Hashmi noted that he and his fellow new doctors began to receive a high volume of marketing emails from drug companies. Some of the content was important, but the sheer volume made it increasingly difficult to distinguish what mattered from what didn’t.

Valuable information became noise, serving neither doctors nor pharmaceutical companies particularly well.

After a few years practicing medicine, Hashmi trusted his experience and his belief in the potential of emerging AI enough to step away from clinical practice and tackle the problem himself.

Turning Healthcare Problems Into AI Opportunities

Getting the right information at the right time in front of a doctor is essential and it can materially affect treatment decisions and patient outcomes.

Hashmi and his team built an AI-powered tool that brokers information between pharmaceutical companies and practitioners, using physicians’ interests, needs, and engagement patterns to make content more personalized and actionable.

Hashmi shared the example of a rural doctor who, through his use of the system, learned about a clinical trial for a patient with a rare illness the physician had never encountered before. The precision of the connection was a direct outcome of AI-developed insight.

This year, Impiricus was ranked No. 14 on the Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest-growing private companies, reporting 11,691 percent three-year revenue growth. That’s not only a credit to Hashmi and his team, but a strong validation that the right AI-driven solutions that solve clear problems or introduce new capabilities in healthcare can meet outstanding demand.

Healthcare’s AI Opportunity Is Just Beginning

The scope of opportunity for novel, AI-powered healthtech is vast.

There’s the obvious space to create efficiencies in the back-office that includes billing, patient correspondence, insurance management, and clinic and hospital operations.

Advances in innovation also mean new drugs, therapies, and treatment options. The doctor’s toolkit expands, while patients gain greater access to information and more opportunities to participate actively in managing their own health and care.

The convergence of digital technologies, AI, automation, and hardware innovation is enabling more healthcare solutions to be delivered at scale, often at lower cost. That’s positive news for an industry and customer base that has traditionally suffered from scarcity, limited access, and unequal availability.

One clear indicator of AI’s growing role in healthcare is the scale of investment. Right now, venture capital investors are pouring around $18 billion annually into the segment. This funding is anticipated to grow in the years ahead.

Hashmi credits growing familiarity with AI as one reason historically conservative medical practitioners are beginning to embrace it. The widespread use of chatbots from companies such as OpenAI and Google has helped make AI familiar and increasingly useful, including in clinical settings.

With the healthcare industry now fully opening the door to innovation, rapid change is inevitable in the way doctors learn and practice medicine.

Additionally, as current or future patients, nearly everyone will eventually experience these changes firsthand.

Balancing Innovation With Patient Care

Hashmi is cautiously optimistic about one particular area of AI innovation in healthcare. He recalls how in medical school his professors emphasized two things: the patient should remain at the center of every interaction and second, the doctor should give their full attention. As a practicing doctor, Hashmi observed that as more technology entered the clinical setting, the less attention was given to the patient. Too often, doctors found themselves typing into a computer while patients described their concerns. With new tools such as an AI medical scribe , practitioners can return to being present with their patients, using good eye contact and even holding a hand when it’s appropriate. Hashmi believes a return to stronger human connection resulting from AI adoption would be a winning outcome.

The road ahead for healthcare innovation isn’t without significant challenges. By their nature, digital and AI-powered solutions are data-intensive. The risks to privacy and security remain high. AI hallucinations, despite improvements in the accuracy of leading models, remain a significant concern in healthcare. Bad medical advice can have real consequences. Hashmi says it’s better to have a system say, “I don’t know” rather than provide a confident wrong answer.

As robotic and increasingly autonomous systems enter clinical environments, appropriate human oversight and the ability to intervene remain essential.

These risks all point to one unchanged mantra in the medical world: first, do no harm . Every innovator and adopter of AI-powered healthcare solutions would be well served by making that principle core to their mission.

While Hashmi may appear more computer scientist than doctor these days, his medical roots remain evident. To paraphrase him, AI may bring powerful compute to the profession, but humans bring humanity to the practice. That’s a deep insight worth considering as the intelligence age unfolds.