Heading into the brand new 12 months, I’ve been the recipient of a number of predictions from distributors, well being system execs, consultants and enterprise capitalists. A lot of the predictions give attention to the place individuals suppose AI adoption is headed within the new 12 months. I believed I’d pull a few of these collectively right here so readers may begin figuring out patterns and customary themes. Completely happy New 12 months!
Keith Figlioli, managing companion at enterprise capital agency LRVHealth, has his finger on the heart beat of well being system transformation and the digital well being startup setting. Right here is one in every of his AI predictions:
“Actuality will hit exhausting in 2026 as individuals begin to acknowledge how troublesome it is going to really be to ship on all of the goals and guarantees of AI in healthcare. There’ll proceed to be vital features and utilization throughout healthcare, however many lofty initiatives will fall flat and extra tempered approaches will prevail. Many AI pilots will advance and we’ll proceed to see extra AI in manufacturing environments, however we nonetheless gained’t see the true influence of AI for some time. In healthcare, it is going to be a few years earlier than most organizations can calculate even baseline ROI and earlier than predictions of job replacements come to fruition. “Subsequent 12 months we’ll begin to see glimmers of hope the place AI can be utilized to thoroughly new workflows and capabilities in healthcare. Work areas that have been both too costly or not potential earlier than the introduction of LLMs and brokers can be imagined, and reimagined. For instance, we’re already beginning to see issues like automated scheduling and the following evolution of the digital entrance door, automated radiology reads utilizing agentic AI, and automatic specialty drug enrollment.”
David Dyke is chief product officer at Relatient, which provides self-scheduling, affected person messaging, chat, digital registration and cost options. One among his AI predictions is that well being methods can be betting on expertise over startups:
“This 12 months introduced a surge of latest entrants into the healthcare IT area, much like what we noticed throughout COVID, with many rising distributors stepping in to satisfy rising demand and the inexperienced area for healthcare AI. As we transfer into 2026, organizations will undertake extra focused and complicated AI performance, most frequently via the digital well being companions they already depend on. These entrenched distributors have been on this area and perceive the intricacies of healthcare, and that offers them a basis that solely time can present. Because the preliminary novelty of AI wears off, many organizations will look to deepen their funding in trusted companions quite than tackle new, one-off options that require extra elevate, integration, or oversight.”
Arcadia President and CEO Michael Meucci had two AI-related predictions, one for suppliers and one for payers:
“Suppliers are balancing operational constraints with rising competitors from consumer-first healthcare fashions. That makes this second each a know-how problem and an operational one. 2026 will nonetheless really feel like a part of the “12 months of AI,” however we’ll be previous the early experimentation part. The actual differentiator can be embedding these instruments the place they’ll drive significant outcomes.”
“Payers are heading into 2026 below intensifying stress. Medical price development stays elevated, competitors is accelerating, and each payers and suppliers are quickly deploying AI throughout cost integrity, coding, and income workflows. The problem isn’t whether or not AI will matter as a result of it is going to. The problem is separating what AI can repair from what it can’t. AI alone just isn’t going to unravel anybody’s development downside. It should assist, but it surely’s not a silver bullet. What payers actually want is transformation: higher networks, aligned incentives, and a shift in technique that connects AI to measurable efficiency.”
The next is a prediction from Heather Trimble, healthcare strategic advisor for analytics and enterprise intelligence software program vendor SAS:
“AI productiveness stacks develop into the norm. By the tip of 2026, each main enterprise can have an AI productiveness stack. The identical manner each enterprise in the present day has cloud and buyer relationship administration (CRM), LLMs stitched into deterministic engines will run all the pieces from advertising and marketing copy to medical billing. Generative AI will get the headlines, however deterministic AI writes the checks. Collectively they make the fashionable enterprise sooner, leaner, and extra inhumanly environment friendly. The losers can be clinging to the phantasm that AI is one other ‘tech wave.’”
Lynne Nowak, M.D., chief information and analytics officer at Surescripts, provided this statement:
“Knowledge insights and the usage of AI have unbelievable potential to proceed enhancing how affected person care is delivered. I predict that in 2026, organizations, clinicians and care managers will work to make sure that these instruments are utilized in essentially the most accountable manner—coaching not simply within the mechanics but additionally the moral use of latest AI know-how—to maintain help care choices and enhance affected person care.”
Eric Prugh, chief product officer at affected person engagement platform Authenticx, has an attention-grabbing take:
“One of many greatest alternatives for AI in 2026 can be using AI in management. A lot of the main focus has been on changing or augmenting frontline, particular person contributor work – customer support reps, observe takers and so forth. However the actual untapped potential lies in instruments that assist leaders make higher, sooner, extra knowledgeable choices.”
This remaining prediction is from Sachin Gupta, founder and international CEO of IKS Well being. His firm’s platform combines AI and human experience to attach medical, operational, and monetary workflows.
“In 2026 we’ll see continued growth of a platform method enabled by agentic interconnected workflows with acceptable human-in-the-loop. There can be recognition that AI is rather more of a platform play than the purpose solution-oriented method that healthcare IT and well being methods have historically taken. That platform play goes to be deeply enabled by interconnected agentic workflows. These workflows will actually display that the worth of the entire is way better than the sum of the person components, particularly when chores of healthcare are delegated to a platform that alleviates the burdens on caregivers and their care groups.”
