Healthcare AI Guy Weekly | 9/9

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Highlights if you’ve only got 2 minutes…

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The billionaire longevity bet

How much would you pay for 20 extra healthy years? Or even a shot at living to 150? For Silicon Valley’s ultrawealthy, the answer is billions. A Wall Street Journal analysis found that Peter Thiel, Sam Altman, Marc Andreessen, and Yuri Milner have funneled more than $5 billion into longevity science over the past 25 years. Thiel alone has backed nearly a dozen ventures, including NewLimit, which raised $200 million to pursue cell rejuvenation, while Altman committed $180 million to Retro Biosciences (who just partnered with OpenAI...), and Altos Labs raised a staggering $3 billion. In total, more than 200 startups and nonprofits have pulled in $12.5 billion, pushing longevity research into the mainstream.

Increasingly, AI is at the center of the story. In his new book Super Agers, Dr. Eric Topol makes the case that AI can help spot early signs of diseases like cancer, Alzheimer’s, and heart conditions long before symptoms show up. By using personalized biomarkers and predictive models based on your biological age, not your birthday, AI is shifting healthcare from reactive to preventive. Startups like Function Health, Prenuvo and others are already proving that prevention, not just time-hacking, could define the future of longevity. (link)

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WellSpan doubles down on AI with General Catalyst

WellSpan Health is deepening its partnership with General Catalyst’s HATCo, becoming its first “transformation partner” to co-develop AI tools that improve care, operations, and workforce capacity. The collaboration builds on past work with portfolio startups like Aidoc and Hippocratic AI, and now expands into a five-year initiative focused on three big goals: reclaiming 400,000 clinical hours through automation, boosting financial performance, and using AI to personalize care and streamline navigation. HATCo will embed a team inside WellSpan to build and scale new solutions in real-world settings. Leaders say the health system’s success with early AI adoption made them confident in going bigger. It’s an ambitious bet that aims to integrate fragmented systems and build tech that actually works for patients and staff and could become a model for others looking to modernize. Upwards and onwards! (link)

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AI’s dangerous illusions

AI’s growing influence brings real promise but also serious risks around misinformation and deception. Critics warn that personifying chatbots as friends or therapists can foster unhealthy attachments and even contribute to mental health crises and a growing concern of “AI psychosis”. In response, ChatGPT and others are updating safety policies and Illinois just banned AI for therapy. Leaders like Microsoft AI’s Mustafa Suleyman argue bots should sound like tools, not people, to avoid blurring the line between human and machine. At the same time, scammers are weaponizing AI to impersonate respected doctors, pushing bogus supplements or counterfeit books under trusted names like Dr. Robert Lustig or Dr. Eric Topol. These tactics erode trust and endanger patients. The takeaway: AI is not human. Treating it as such invites harm. Especially in medicine, we need firm guardrails to keep people safe and informed of what they’re using to allow both patients and the real benefits of AI to flourish.

Tools & Partnerships 🔧

Latest on business, consumer, and clinical healthcare AI tools and partnerships…

TOOLS

• Hyro launches Proactive Px™ to combat Beautiful Bill fallout: With $204B in uncompensated care at stake, Hyro’s new outbound AI platform uses voice and SMS agents to close care gaps. Launching with ARMR™ Outreach, a free agent for ACA/Medicaid re-enrollment, Hyro helps health systems protect coverage, care, and revenue. (link)*

• Epic unveils AI model for clinical foresight: Epic unveiled Comet, a set of AI models trained on 100B+ data points from Cosmos’ de-identified patient records to predict likely clinical outcomes. Comet generates realistic future timelines and will surface insights directly in workflows. (link)(linkedin)

• AI helps paralyzed patients control robots: UCLA researchers built a non-invasive brain-computer interface that uses AI to decode EEG signals, letting paralyzed users control robotic arms with their thoughts, completing tasks 4x faster, no surgery needed. (link)

• Mayo Clinic develops AI model to predict ALS and patient outcomes: Trained on F-wave nerve conduction data from 46K+ patients, Mayo’s model classifies ALS and estimates survival, outperforming clinical annotations and flagging high-risk factors like bulbar onset and family history. (link)

• OpenAI launches “OpenAI for Science” to accelerate discovery: CPO Kevin Weil unveiled a new initiative to build AI-powered platforms for fundamental scientific research. The team will pair top scientists with researchers to create tools that act as the next great scientific instrument. (link)

• MIT develops AI to predict flu vaccine accuracy: VaxSeer, a new AI model from MIT, outperformed WHO’s flu strain picks in 15 of 20 past seasons. Trained on decades of viral data, it forecasts dominant strains and vaccine effectiveness months in advance. (link)

• CommonSpirit hits $100M in savings from 230 AI apps: CommonSpirit Health now runs 230 AI tools across its hospitals, up from 160 two years ago, generating over $100M in annual savings. Its EDAG committee reviews every new tool to ensure safety, ethics, and oversight. (link)

• AI detects Parkinson’s via smile videos, NEJM AI study finds: Researchers trained models on 1,400+ videos of facial expressions, including smiles, surprise, and disgust, and found the tool could detect Parkinson’s with accuracy rivaling specialists. The method offers low-cost, early screening at home. (link)

• Mount Sinai launches AEquity to root out bias in healthcare AI: Researchers at Icahn School of Medicine developed AEquity, a model-agnostic tool that detects hidden biases in healthcare datasets, from lab inputs to diagnostic outputs, and works across imaging, EHRs, surveys, and LLMs. (link)

• Soul Machines unveils empathetic AI ‘Digital Workforce’ for healthcare: The company launched lifelike, emotionally responsive AI agents to assist with healthcare, HR, and enterprise support tasks, aiming to improve engagement and efficiency. (link)

• Artisight adds autonomous OR documentation to smart hospital platform: Artisight’s new computer vision feature captures key surgical milestones like patient entry and procedure times directly into the EHR, reducing manual documentation and improving resource utilization. (link)

• WiFi signals used to measure heart rate in new UC Santa Cruz study: Researchers developed “Pulse-Fi,” a machine learning system that uses standard WiFi transmitters and receivers to detect pulse with clinical-grade accuracy in just 5 seconds, no wearables needed. (link)

• Proscia launches Aperture to spot trial-ready patients at diagnosis: New AI tool scans pathology data in real time to match patients to trials, helping labs boost revenue and biopharma speed drug development. (link)

• Scribematic launches embedded scribe for EHR vendors: Scribematic launched Matic Inside, a fully embedded, HIPAA-compliant AI scribe designed for EHR vendors. (link)

PARTNERSHIPS

• Northwestern Medicine + Tempus: Northwestern is the first health system to integrate Tempus’ generative AI co-pilot, David, into its EHR to support note-taking, documentation, and multimodal patient record insights. (link)

• Connecticut Children’s + Innovaccer: Connecticut Children’s Care Network is deploying Innovaccer’s platform for 140,000+ pediatric patients, integrating claims and clinical data to boost population health and performance. (link)

• HCA Healthcare + GE HealthCare: HCA and GE are co-developing an FDA-submission algorithm for fetal heart rate monitoring to advance AI-driven patient safety. (link)

• Hartford HealthCare + Abridge: Hartford is rolling out Abridge’s ambient AI clinical intelligence platform systemwide after a pilot, citing its ability to support 55+ specialties, mitigate hallucinations, and handle real-time prior auth. (link)

• Vanderbilt University Medical Center + Microsoft DAX: VUMC is expanding Microsoft’s ambient scribe across ambulatory clinics and EDs, with plans to extend to inpatient settings. (link)

• Ambience Healthcare + Epic: Ambience expanded its Epic integration, embedding chart summarization and coding tools into Epic Hyperspace and Haiku to further ease documentation alongside its ambient scribe. (link)

*Sponsored Listing

Deal Desk 💸 

Spotlight on latest capital raises, M&A, and investments…

FUNDING

• Anthropic, a San Francisco-based developer of AI models, raised $13B in Series F funding. ICONIQ, Fidelity Management & Research Company, and Lightspeed Venture Partners led the round and were joined by Altimeter, Baillie Gifford, affiliated funds of BlackRock, Blackstone, Coatue, and others. (link)

• Ketryx, a safety compliance platform for life sciences, raised $39M in Series B funding. Transformation Capital led, joined by Lightspeed Venture Partners, MIT's E14 Fund, Ubiquity Ventures, and 53 Stations. (link)

• Predoc, a medical records management automation startup, raised $30M in seed and Series A funding. Base10 Partners led, joined by Northzone, Eniac, and Era Ventures. (link)

• InstaLILY AI, the maker of AI Teammates for the world's most operationally intensive industries, including healthcare, today announced a $25M Series A funding round led by Insight Partners, with participation from Perceptive Ventures and Marvin Ventures. (link)

• Hello Patient, an Austin, Texas-based developer of conversational AI for patient communications, raised $22.5M in Series A funding. Scale Venture Partners led the round and was joined by 8VC, Bling Capital, Max Ventures, Remus Capital, and FirstLook Partners. (link)

• Reveal HealthTech, a provider of cross-functional technology services to healthcare, raised $7.2M Series A. Led by Leo Capital with participation from Sanos Capital. (link)

• NewDays, a Seattle, Ore.-based developer of an AI-powered cognitive health platform for patients with mild cognitive impairment and dementia, raised $7M in seed funding from General Catalyst and Madrona. (link)

• Neon Health, an SF-based AI tool to help patients obtain specialty drugs, raised $6M. NFX led, joined by DigiTx, Olive Capital, Ascend, Village Global, and Digital Health Venture Partners. (link)

MERGERS & ACQUISTIONS

• HealthEdge + UST HealthProof: Bain Capital has combined two payer tech firms, acquiring HealthEdge from Blackstone in a $2.6B deal and buying UST HealthProof from UST. The merged company, operating as HealthEdge, now serves 115+ health plans covering 110M lives. (link)

Other Relevant News 🔍

News, podcasts, blogs, tweets, resources, etc…

• Clinical AI in healthcare: opportunities, gaps, and barriers (link)

• Cybercriminals deploy AI agents in attacks on healthcare (link)

• Clinicians flag “AI psychosis” after chatbot-induced delusions (link)

• OpenAI expects business to burn $115 billion through 2029 (link)

• Forbes unveils 2025 Cloud 100 list (link)

AI Job Opportunities 💼 

Contact us to feature roles in our newsletter…

• Growth Chief of Staff at Neon Health, an AI-powered patient access platform

  $150 - $180k | SF (link)

• Strategic Growth Director at Aidoc, a clinical AI imaging platform
  $NA | USA (link)

• Applied AI Systems Engineer at Neon Health, an AI platform for patient access

  $140 - $200k | SF (link)

• Head of Product at Layer Health, an AI layer to synthesize medical records

  $260 - $300k | Boston or NYC (link)

Visuals of the Week 📸

Funny memes, cool pics, and interesting data from around the web…