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Attendees at HIMSS in Orlando, Florida 2024.

Courtesy of HIMSS

The hottest new technology for doctors promises to bring back an age-old health-care practice: face-to-face conversations with patients.

As more than 30,000 health and tech professionals gathered among the palm trees at the HIMSS conference in Orlando, Florida, this week, ambient clinical documentation was the talk of the exhibition floor. 

This technology allows doctors to consensually record their visits with patients. The conversations are automatically transformed into clinical notes and summaries using artificial intelligence. Companies like Microsoft’s Nuance Communications, Abridge and Suki have developed solutions with these capabilities, which they argue will help reduce doctors’ administrative workloads and prioritize meaningful connections with patients. 

“After I see a patient, I have to write notes, I have to place orders, I have to think about the patient summary,” Dr. Shiv Rao, founder and CEO of Abridge, told CNBC at HIMSS. “So what our technology does is it allows me to focus on the person in front of me — the most important person, the patient — because when I hit start, have a conversation, then hit stop, I can swivel my chair and within seconds, the note’s there.” 

Administrative workloads are a major problem for clinicians across the U.S. health-care system. A survey published by Athenahealth in February found that more than 90% of physicians report feeling burned out on a “regular basis,” largely because of the paperwork they are expected to complete. 

More than 60% of doctors said they feel overwhelmed by clerical requirements and work an average of 15 hours per week outside their normal hours to keep up, the survey said. Many in the industry call this at-home work “pajama time.” 

Since administrative work is mostly bureaucratic and doesn’t directly influence doctors’ decisions around diagnoses or patient care, it has served as one of the first areas where health systems have seriously begun to explore applications of generative AI. As a result, ambient clinical documentation solutions are having a real moment in the sun. 

“There isn’t a better place to be,” Kenneth Harper, general manager of DAX Copilot at Microsoft, told CNBC in an interview. 

Microsoft’s Nuance announced its ambient clinical documentation tool Dragon Ambient eXperience (DAX) Express in a preview capacity last March. By September, the solution, now called DAX Copilot, was generally available. Harper said there are now more than 200 organizations using the technology. 

Microsoft acquired Nuance for around $16 billion in 2021. The company had a two-story exhibition booth in the exhibit hall that was often packed with attendees

Harper said the technology saves doctors several minutes per encounter, though the exact numbers vary depending on the specialty. He said his team gets feedback about the service almost daily from doctors who claim it has helped them take better care of themselves — and even saved their marriages.

Doctors using A.I. to fight burnout: Apps for medical record technology

Harper recounted a conversation with one physician who was considering retirement after practicing for more than three decades. He said the doctor was feeling worn out from years of stress, but he was inspired to keep working after he was introduced to DAX Copilot. 

“He said, ‘I literally think I’m going to practice for another 10 years because I actually enjoy what I do,'” Harper said. “That’s just a personal anecdote of the type of impact this is having on our care teams.” 

At HIMSS, Stanford Health Care announced it is deploying DAX Copilot across its entire enterprise. 

Gary Fritz, chief of applications at Stanford Health Care, said the organization had initially started by testing the tool within its exam rooms. He said Stanford recently surveyed physicians about their use of DAX Copilot and 96% found it easy to use. 

“I don’t know that I’ve ever seen that big a number,” Fritz told CNBC in an interview. “It is a big deal.”

Dr. Christopher Sharp, chief medical information officer at Stanford Health Care and one of the physicians who tested DAX Copilot, said it is “remarkably seamless” to use. He said the tool’s immediacy and reliability are accurate and strong but could improve at capturing a patient’s tone. 

Sharp said he thinks the tool saves him documentation time and has changed how he spends that time. He said he is often reading and editing notes instead of composing them, for instance, so it is not as though the work has disappeared entirely.

In the near term, Sharp said he’d like to see more capabilities for personalization within DAX Copilot, both at an individual and specialty level. Even so, he said it was easy to see the value of it from the start.

“The moment that that first document returns to you, and you see your own words and the patient’s own words being reflected directly back to you in a usable fashion, I would say that from that moment, you’re hooked,” Sharp told CNBC in an interview.

Fritz said it is still early in the product life cycle, and Stanford Health Care is still working out exactly what deployment will look like. He said DAX Copilot will likely roll out in specialty-specific tranches. 

Attendees at HIMSS in Orlando, Florida 2024.

Courtesy of HIMSS

In January, Nuance announced the general availability of DAX Copilot within Epic Systems’ electronic health record (EHR). Most doctors create and manage patient medical records using EHRs, and Epic is the largest vendor by hospital market share in the U.S., according to a May report from KLAS Research

Integrating a tool like DAX Copilot directly into doctors’ EHR workflow means they won’t need to switch apps to access it, which helps save time and reduce their clerical burden even further, Harper said. 

Seth Hain, senior vice president of R&D at Epic, told CNBC that more than 150,000 notes have been drafted into the company’s software by ambient technologies since the HIMSS conference last year. And the technology is scaling fast. Hain said more notes have already been drafted in 2024 than in 2023.

“You’re seeing health systems who have worked through an intentional process of acclimating their end users to this type of technology, now beginning to rapidly roll that out,” he said. 

A company named Abridge also integrates its ambient clinical documentation technology directly within Epic. Abridge declined to share the exact number of health organizations using its technology. It announced at HIMSS that California-based UCI Health is rolling out the company’s solution system-wide. 

Rao, the CEO of Abridge, said the rate at which the health-care industry has adopted ambient clinical documentation feels “historic.” 

Abridge announced a $30 million Series B funding round in October, led by Spark Capital, and four months later, the company closed a $150 million Series C round, according to a February release. Rao said tail winds like physician burnout have turned into a “tornado” for Abridge, and it will use these funds to continue to invest in the science behind the technology and explore where it can go next. 

The company is saving some doctors as much as three hours a day, Rao said, and is automating more than 92% of the clerical work it focuses on. Abridge’s technology is live across 55 specialties and 14 languages, he added. 

Abridge has a Slack channel called “love stories,” which was viewed by CNBC, where the team will share the positive feedback they get about their technology. One message from this week was from a doctor who said Abridge helped them take their least favorite part of their job away and saves them around an hour and a half each day.

“That’s the type of feedback that absolutely inspires everybody in the company,” Rao said.

Suki CEO Punit Soni said the ambient clinical documentation market is “sizzling.” He expects rapid growth to continue through the next couple of years, though, like all hype cycles, he said he thinks the dust will settle.

Soni founded Suki more than six years ago after hypothesizing that there would be a need for a digital assistant to help doctors manage clinical documentation. Soni said Suki is now used by more than 30 specialties in around 250 health organizations nationwide. Six “large health systems” have gone live with Suki in the past two weeks, he added. 

“For four to five years I’ve sat around, basically with the shop open, hoping somebody will show up. Now the entire mall is here, and there’s a line outside the door of people wanting to deploy, ” Soni told CNBC at HIMSS. “It’s very, very exciting to be here.”

Suki’s website says its technology can reduce the time a physician spends on documentation by an average of 72%. The company raised a $55 million funding round in 2021 led by March Capital. It will likely raise another round in the latter half of the year, Soni said.

Soni said Suki is focused on deploying its technology at scale and exploring additional applications, like how ambient documentation could be used to assist nurses. He said the Spanish language is coming to Suki soon, and customers should expect most major languages to follow. 

“There is so much that has to happen,” he said. “In the next decade, all of health-care tech is going to look completely different.”

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How TikTok’s rise sparked a short-form video race

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How TikTok’s rise sparked a short-form video race

TikTok’s grip on the short-form video market is tightening, and the world’s biggest tech platforms are racing to catch up.

Since launching globally in 2016, ByteDance-owned TikTok has amassed over 1.12 billion monthly active users worldwide, according to Backlinko. American users spend an average of 108 minutes per day on the app, according to Apptoptia.

TikTok’s success has reshaped the social media landscape, forcing competitors like Meta and Google to pivot their strategies around short-form video. But so far, experts say that none have matched TikTok’s algorithmic precision.

“It is the center of the internet for young people,” said Jasmine Enberg, vice president and principal analyst at Emarketer. “It’s where they go for entertainment, news, trends, even shopping. TikTok sets the tone for everyone else.”

Platforms like Meta‘s Instagram Reels and Google’s YouTube Shorts have expanded aggressively, launching new features, creator tools and even considering separate apps just to compete. Microsoft-owned LinkedIn, traditionally a professional networking site, is the latest to experiment with TikTok-style feeds. But with TikTok continuing to evolve, adding features like e-commerce integrations and longer videos, the question remains whether rivals can keep up.

“I’m scrolling every single day. I doom scroll all the time,” said TikTok content creator Alyssa McKay.

But there may a dark side to this growth.

As short-form content consumption soars, experts warn about shrinking attention spans and rising mental-health concerns, particularly among younger users. Researchers like Dr. Yann Poncin, associate professor at the Child Study Center at Yale University, point to disrupted sleep patterns and increased anxiety levels tied to endless scrolling habits.

“Infinite scrolling and short-form video are designed to capture your attention in short bursts,” Dr. Poncin said. “In the past, entertainment was about taking you on a journey through a show or story. Now, it’s about locking you in for just a few seconds, just enough to feed you the next thing the algorithm knows you’ll like.”

Despite sky-high engagement, monetizing short videos remains an uphill battle. Unlike long-form YouTube content, where ads can be inserted throughout, short clips offer limited space for advertisers. Creators, too, are feeling the squeeze.

“It’s never been easier to go viral,” said Enberg. “But it’s never been harder to turn that virality into a sustainable business.”

Last year, TikTok generated an estimated $23.6 billion in ad revenues, according to Oberlo, but even with this growth, many creators still make just a few dollars per million views. YouTube Shorts pays roughly four cents per 1,000 views, which is less than its long-form counterpart. Meanwhile, Instagram has leaned into brand partnerships and emerging tools like “Trial Reels,” which allow creators to experiment with content by initially sharing videos only with non-followers, giving them a low-risk way to test new formats or ideas before deciding whether to share with their full audience. But Meta told CNBC that monetizing Reels remains a work in progress.

While lawmakers scrutinize TikTok’s Chinese ownership and explore potential bans, competitors see a window of opportunity. Meta and YouTube are poised to capture up to 50% of reallocated ad dollars if TikTok faces restrictions in the U.S., according to eMarketer.

Watch the video to understand how TikTok’s rise sparked a short form video race.

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Elon Musk’s xAI Holdings in talks to raise $20 billion, Bloomberg News reports

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Elon Musk's xAI Holdings in talks to raise  billion, Bloomberg News reports

The X logo appears on a phone, and the xAI logo is displayed on a laptop in Krakow, Poland, on April 1, 2025. (Photo by Klaudia Radecka/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Elon Musk‘s xAI Holdings is in discussions with investors to raise about $20 billion, Bloomberg News reported Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The funding would value the company at over $120 billion, according to the report.

Musk was looking to assign “proper value” to xAI, sources told CNBC’s David Faber earlier this month. The remarks were made during a call with xAI investors, sources familiar with the matter told Faber. The Tesla CEO at that time didn’t explicitly mention any upcoming funding round, but the sources suggested xAI was preparing for a substantial capital raise in the near future.

The funding amount could be more than $20 billion as the exact figure had not been decided, the Bloomberg report added.

Artificial intelligence startup xAI didn’t immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment outside of U.S. business hours.

Faber Report: Elon Musk held call with current xAI investors, sources say

The AI firm last month acquired X in an all-stock deal that valued xAI at $80 billion and the social media platform at $33 billion.

“xAI and X’s futures are intertwined. Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent,” Musk said on X, announcing the deal. “This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach.”

Read the full Bloomberg story here.

— CNBC’s Samantha Subin contributed to this report.

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Alphabet jumps 3% as search, advertising units show resilient growth

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Alphabet jumps 3% as search, advertising units show resilient growth

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai during the Google I/O developers conference in Mountain View, California, on May 10, 2023.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Alphabet‘s stock gained 3% Friday after signaling strong growth in its search and advertising businesses amid a competitive artificial intelligence environment and uncertain macro backdrop.

GOOGL‘s pace of GenAI product roll-out is accelerating with multiple encouraging signals,” wrote Morgan Stanley‘s Brian Nowak. “Macro uncertainty still exists but we remain [overweight] given GOOGL’s still strong relative position and improving pace of GenAI enabled product roll-out.”

The search giant posted earnings of $2.81 per share on $90.23 billion in revenues. That topped the $89.12 billion in sales and $2.01 in EPS expected by LSEG analysts. Revenues grew 12% year-over-year and ahead of the 10% anticipated by Wall Street.

Net income rose 46% to $34.54 billion, or $2.81 per share. That’s up from $23.66 billion, or $1.89 per share, in the year-ago period. Alphabet said the figure included $8 billion in unrealized gains on its nonmarketable equity securities connected to its investment in a private company.

Adjusted earnings, excluding that gain, were $2.27 per share, according to LSEG, and topped analyst expectations.

Read more CNBC tech news

Alphabet shares have pulled back about 16% this year as it battles volatility spurred by mounting trade war fears and worries that President Donald Trump‘s tariffs could crush the global economy. That would make it more difficult for Alphabet to potentially acquire infrastructure for data centers powering AI models as it faces off against competitors such as OpenAI and Anthropic to develop largely language models.

During Thursday’s call with investors, Alphabet suggested that it’s too soon to tally the total impact of tariffs. However, Google’s business chief Philipp Schindler said that ending the de minimis trade exemption in May, which created a loophole benefitting many Chinese e-commerce retailers, could create a “slight headwind” for the company’s ads business, specifically in the Asia-Pacific region. The loophole allows shipments under $800 to come into the U.S. duty-free.

Despite this backdrop, Alphabet showed steady growth in its advertising and search business, reporting $66.89 billion in revenues for its advertising unit. That reflected 8.5% growth from the year-ago period. The company reported $8.93 billion in advertising revenue for its YouTube business, shy of an $8.97 billion estimate from StreetAccount.

Alphabet’s “Search and other” unit rose 9.8% to $50.7 billion, up from $46.16 billion last year. The company said that its AI Overviews tool used in its Google search results page has accumulated 1.5 billion monthly users from a billion in October.

Bank of America analyst Justin Post said that Wall Street is underestimating the upside potential and “monetization ramp” from this tool and cloud demand fueled by AI.

“The strong 1Q search performance, along with constructive comments on Gemini [large language model] performance and [AI Overviews] adoption could help alleviate some investor concerns on AI competition,” Post wrote in a note.

WATCH: Gemini delivering well for Google, says Check Capital’s Chris Ballard

Gemini delivering well for Google, says Check Capital's Chris Ballard

CNBC’s Jennifer Elias contributed to this report.

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