We talk a lot about AI disrupting tech and finance, but healthcare might actually be where the biggest money and biggest impact is heading.
We are moving toward an era of autonomous health where AI handles everything from crunching data to slashing mountains of paperwork and freeing up doctors to actually focus on patients.
But with billions of venture dollars pouring in, how do you separate the real game changers from overhyped startups?
Well, here to break down the business of autonomous healthcare is.
Amal Madan, who is CEO of Radiantgraph and MIT computer scientist, as well as author of The Machines, we'll see you now.
Great to have you here.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you for having me, Remy.
Well, we talk about artificial intelligence and how it will shift industries and change industries, but when we're looking at healthcare, where do you see the biggest opportunities right now?
Yes, and Remi, I'll go off and say I think healthcare is probably the biggest opportunity for AI in many ways, and it's 17 to 18% of our.
GDP, our costs keep going up 7% year on year.
In fact, with the early AI, kind of the initial innings of AI that we're seeing right now in healthcare, costs are going to go higher with AI, not lower.
Those are all the predictions.
We still have an access shortage in the country.
We still have Medicare and Medicaid that are unsustainable, which we pay for as taxpayers in many ways, and I think consumers are rewarding for better experience.
I think the market is on the cusp of a big shift.
But how we navigate chat shift and what's going to work and what's not is what I talk about in the book and what makes that.
And Amal, when we're talking about the healthcare space, especially post pandemic, the focus might be on overhead administrative costs as well as human burnout.
So tell us about how you expect autonomous AI to actually bend the cost curve here.
Yes, so the roadmap I'm laying out in the book, it's a little bit of the next decade or two.
It's not just what's happening this year, but also what's coming in the next 35, 10 years, and I lay out a roadmap for increasing autonomy in healthcare.
And now that's going to sound very scary to many of your viewers, including to all of us here, right?
But you think of healthcare, it's one of the last few industries where the experience of healthcare is what I call level one, which is basically it's sort of the diagnostic decisions, the treatment decisions, the care support that's being given, care management is still done by Cubans.
Slowly we will see that getting more and more automated.
Certainly the technologies are in that direction.
I think there's a lot of business questions to be answered.
There's a lot of regulatory safety questions to be answered and mapped out.
But as we see that, it means it could translate into healthcare finally being deflationary, which we have not seen in healthcare, right?
We've always seen the cost go up, so finally being deflationary and so finally the cost of care going down and the access and the quality of care continuing to kind of stay steady or even improve, right?
So I think that's the roadmap that I talk about, but I think The technology is kind of leading the curve, and by the way, this isn't just healthcare.
You've seen this most recently with the legal profession.
There's Harvey and Decora and all these other companies doing interesting things there.
So a lot of traditional industries, a lot of established industries, professional industries are seeing this.
And so I think how we navigate that is what I talk about in the book, and I think it's a 2 year, 3 year, 5 year, 10 year journey.
It's not an 18 month journey.
And while you're here at the New York Stock Exchange.
We're talking about healthcare.
It's a highly regulated industry just like financial services.
So how do you separate the hype from the sustainable modes?
Well, sadly, isn't that the billion dollar question, right?
I wish we could all separate the hype.
I think the thing that I would caution folks about healthcare is building lasting companies in healthcare.
Similar amount of financial services takes time, right?
And so part of what we're seeing in the valley is.
People coming in and having massive evaluations and massive rounds and raising a lot of money, and in fact I joke with my investors that I'm probably the only founder in the portfolio who has asked for a lower valuation than others because I think what people are missing is just because the technology is new doesn't mean that the adoption cycles are still kind of old school, right?
You still have to work with the same health systems, health plans, you still have to work with the same. procurement processes.
So I think that's one constraint.
The other constraint I'll call out is kind of looking for real world use is really crucial.
And so what's the impact?
What's the evidence?
What's the outcomes with real patients, not just like a prototype, but do you have research or evidence that shows.
Drives better care or better care outcomes.
I think that's a lot of what has to be proven out and will take time in healthcare.
Yes, and finally, before I let you go, I do want to get your perspective on executive readiness here as well as legacy infrastructure.
So what should C-suite leaders be doing today?
Yes, I think there's a gap in C-suite thinking right now, which is they're coming in and saying we wrote some AI.
I know what it is, and then there's a set of activity happening, and I think the biggest thing that I talk about in the book is in the short term is really think about what is the impact on your processes and workflows.
What can you make an argument to improve or make better.
Healthcare is not like enterprise or retail, right?
Most of healthcare runs on 23, 5% margins, and so the way you think of technology investment in healthcare has to tie to what's the short term kind of map.
Outcomes and impact and where do you partner or where do you sort of leverage versus building everything in-house and so I think those are a couple of things that healthcare executives are going to have to think differently from their peers in financial services or broader enterprise software.
Yes, and we have about 60 seconds here, so I understand you argue that technology alone will not determine market leaders when it comes to autonomous health.
So what do you think will actually make or break tomorrow's leaders?
I think.
It's going to come down to how they navigate the regulatory climate, the business kind of ecosystem, the go to market components.
A lot of those pieces have to be figured out.
So I think it's a very exciting time to be working on these problems and a lot of the business. are not yet figured out, but they will be in the next 12 to 18 months.
They will shape how private equity thinks of healthcare.
They will shape how the broader economy works.
I'm excited to live through that.
Well, Amal, I appreciate your time.
Thank you so much for weighing in today and sharing your perspective as well as your insights.
Thank you, Abby.
Thank you.
