Healthcare AI News 10/22/25

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**AI Agents Are Changing Healthcare This Week**

Artificial intelligence agents are transforming healthcare. An **AI agent is a smart computer program that can understand information, make decisions, and take actions** without needing a person to tell it what to do every single time.[1] This week, many healthcare companies introduced new AI agents to help doctors, hospitals, and patients. These agents are making healthcare faster, smarter, and more helpful for everyone involved.

**New AI Assistants Help with Insurance and Health Questions**

One company called **Arbital Health** announced an AI assistant called **Merlin**. Merlin's job is to read insurance contracts and explain them in a way that makes sense.[1] Insurance contracts are usually very long and confusing, with lots of confusing words. But Merlin can understand them and explain what they mean and what happens next. This helps people understand what their insurance covers.

In another big move, a company called **Counsel Health** raised $25 million to build an **AI chatbot** that answers health questions from people in the United States.[1] Here's how it works: when you have a health question, you can talk to the AI chatbot first. It will try to answer your question and help you understand it. But if you need to actually talk to a real doctor, the chatbot can connect you to one immediately. The chatbot has a network of real doctors across all 50 states in the United States. A single doctor visit costs about $29, or you can pay $199 per year if you want to talk to doctors as many times as you want.

**AI Reading Medical Records to Suggest Better Treatments**

An amazing new **AI agent** was launched by **Atropos Health**.[1] This AI agent can read a patient's entire medical record - all the notes from doctors, all the test results, and all the medicines a person takes - and then suggest what treatment might work best. **Stanford Health Care**, a big hospital system in California, is already using this technology with their own AI system called ChatEHR. This means that when a doctor at Stanford is trying to decide how to treat a patient, the AI can help by looking at everything in that patient's medical record and suggesting the best options based on what worked for others.

Another new AI tool called **Oria** from **Trilliant Health** is a **free chatbot** that helps people find out how much hospital care will cost.[1] In the United States, hospital prices can be very different from one hospital to another, and it is very hard to know what things will cost. This chatbot helps solve that problem by explaining prices upfront.

**Giant Hospitals Are Making Massive AI Investments**

This week, we learned about how big hospitals are spending enormous amounts of money on AI. **Kaiser Permanente**, one of the largest hospital systems in the United States, rolled out AI tools across **40 hospitals and more than 600 medical offices**.[6] This is the biggest roll out of AI in healthcare history. Kaiser did this faster than it has ever brought in new technology before - they did in recent years what usually takes 20 years.

The **Mayo Clinic** announced it would spend **more than $1 billion on AI** over the next few years.[6] Mayo Clinic is planning **more than 200 different AI projects**. These projects aren't just about helping with paperwork and writing notes. They're also about using AI to help diagnose diseases and care for patients. This shows how serious they are about using AI to improve healthcare.

**Advocate Health**, another large hospital system, looked at **225 different AI solutions** from different companies and picked **40 of them** to start using right away.[6] Some of their AI tools help doctors with writing medical notes, some help doctors read X-rays and scans faster, and some help answer patient phone calls. They think these tools will **reduce the time doctors spend writing notes by more than 50%**, which means doctors will have more time to actually talk to patients.

**AI Can Now Design New Medicines and Find Diseases**

One of the most exciting pieces of news this week is that **AI is now at an expert level for medical diagnosis** and is even starting to **design new medicines**.[2] This is huge! It means that AI isn't just helping people - it's actually creating new treatments that humans might not have thought of. AI can look at how diseases work and come up with brand new medicine ideas. This shows how **powerful AI has become in healthcare**.

**AI Technology Is Getting Very Powerful But Also Raises Concerns**

A big report this week called the **"2025 State of AI Report"** explained that AI is growing so fast, but the **biggest companies are getting much more power** than smaller ones.[2] The report said that to make the best AI, you need tons of **computer power, high-quality information, and smart people** to build it. Only huge companies can afford all of these things right now. This creates a worry that some countries and smaller hospitals might not be able to use the best AI tools. It might create a gap between rich and poor countries.

**The World Is Making Rules to Keep AI Safe**

This week, the **World Health Organization** held a big meeting in **Incheon, South Korea** called **AIRIS 2025**.[5] Countries from all over the world came together to talk about how to make sure AI is **safe and fair in healthcare**. They said AI should be safe, should be ethical, and should work for everyone. They also said different countries need to work together to make sure AI is good for everyone in the world.

In the United States, the **American Medical Association** launched a new **"Center for Digital Health and AI"**.[9] This center's job is to make sure doctors have a voice in how AI tools are made. The AMA said that **about two-thirds of doctors are already using some kind of AI tool** in their work. But some doctors are still worried about safety and privacy issues. This new center will help doctors understand AI better and make sure their concerns are heard.

**The Market for Healthcare AI Is Exploding**

The worldwide market for **AI in healthcare** was worth about **$29 billion in 2024**, but it is growing incredibly fast.[4] By 2025, it is already at about **$39 billion**. By 2032 - just seven years from now - it is predicted to be worth **over $500 billion**.[4] This shows how important AI is becoming to healthcare around the world. **North America** leads in this market with **49.29% of all the world's healthcare AI business** in 2024.[4]

**Conclusion: AI Agents Are Here to Stay**

This weekly update shows that **AI agents are already changing how healthcare works**, making it faster, smarter, and better for patients everywhere. From chatbots that answer health questions to AI that reads medical records and suggests treatments, **artificial intelligence is becoming a normal part of healthcare**. As hospitals invest billions of dollars into AI and the world works together to keep it safe and fair, we can expect even more changes in the coming years.

This 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.[1] 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.[1] 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.[1] 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.[1] Another company called **Trilliant Health** released **Oria, a free AI chatbot** that helps people find out how much hospital care costs.[1]

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**.[6] The **Mayo Clinic** said it would spend **over $1 billion on AI projects** in the next few years.[6] 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.[5] 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.[9]

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