Healthcare Weekly AI News
October 20 - October 28, 2025This week in healthcare, many companies introduced AI agents - which are computer programs that can think and make decisions on their own - to help doctors, hospitals, and patients. These smart programs are helping healthcare workers spend less time on paperwork and more time helping patients.
One big announcement this week came from a company called Arbital Health, which created an AI assistant named Merlin. Merlin helps understand insurance contracts and explains what they mean. In the United States, another company called Counsel Health raised money to build an AI chatbot that answers health questions. When you have a health question, this chatbot can talk to you first, and if you need to see a real doctor, it can connect you with one from their network of doctors across 50 states. The doctor visit costs about $29 or you can pay $199 per year for unlimited visits.
A company called Atropos Health launched a special AI expert that reads patient medical records and suggests different treatment options based on what it learns. Stanford Health Care is already using this technology. Another company called Trilliant Health released Oria, a free AI chatbot that helps people find out how much hospital care costs.
Big hospitals are also investing huge amounts of money into AI. Kaiser Permanente, a large hospital system in the United States, rolled out the biggest AI project in healthcare history across 40 hospitals and 600 medical offices. The Mayo Clinic said it would spend over $1 billion on AI projects in the next few years. These hospitals are using AI not just for paperwork, but to help diagnose diseases and care for patients better.
This week also brought important conversations about keeping AI safe and fair. The World Health Organization held a big meeting in South Korea where countries talked about how to make sure AI is used safely in healthcare. The American Medical Association in the United States launched a new center to make sure doctors have a say in how new AI tools are designed.